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CoStar, which provides commercial real estate information and analytics, says it will buy Homesnap, an app that improves real estate agent workflows, for $250M
Snap announces Spotlight, a vertically scrollable TikTok-like feed inside Snapchat, and will pay $1M everyday to users who create the top Snaps through 2020
Analysis: Facebook and Instagram ads appear to be reaching a saturation point after rising by a ~30% quarterly average since Q3 2015
Gatik, which is developing level 4 autonomous short-haul delivery trucks, raises $22.5M Series A and says it has signed a deal with Canadian retailer Loblaw
Forto, a freight forwarder service that gives customers real-time data and on-time delivery, raises $50M Series C led by Inven Capital
Switzerland-based Kandou, a fabless semiconductor company developing USB-C hardware that supports USB4, Thunderbolt 3, and more, raises $92.3M Series C
How the open source movement and early version control systems like CVS, Subversion, and Git paved the way for today's remote development processes
A look at Sugon, a Chinese company at the heart of the country's surveillance efforts, and how it uses Intel and Nvidia chips to analyze video feeds at scale
Tibber, which uses AI to predict energy consumption of a house and switch to the cheapest electricity supplier, raises $65M Series B
Moving ICANN's public forums online and removing barriers like travel helped it broaden participation, allowing 1,752 people from 130 countries to participate
Twitter, which played a central role in Trump's presidency, is attempting to redefine itself for a post-Trump future through the launch of features like Fleets
Critics of Coupang, South Korea's online retail giant, describe the COVID-19 outbreak at a warehouse as an inevitable outcome of putting efficiency over safety
Teachers say they are spending hours reviewing tests that were scored incorrectly by auto-grading bots, which try to match a student's response to an answer key
Experts say AI-based apps like qXR, which help clinicians diagnose tuberculosis early, could make an enormous impact on the control of the disease in India
A look at Covid Tracking Project, a website run mostly by volunteers, which has become one of the most trusted sources on the spread of COVID-19 in the US
Inside YouTube Music's plans to compete with Spotify and others by putting the entire music business, including livestreams and tickets, onto a single platform
LA-based Credit Key, which offers a B2B buy-now, pay-later service for e-commerce merchants, raises $33.85M Series A from Greycroft, Bonfire Ventures, others
ClosedLoop.ai, which is developing AI-based tools to help hospitals predict factors like patient readmission and appointment cancellations, raises $11M Series A
CAIS, an alternative investment service that also offers an AI-powered training system for independent financial advisors, raises $50M Series B from Eldridge
Profile of Vishal Garg, CEO of Better.com, who is fighting lawsuits that accuse him of fraud and misappropriation of funds at previous business ventures
Zillow usage since March is up 50%+ YoY, as surfing real estate listings on home buying websites becomes a form of escapism amid the pandemic
Survey of post samples from 173 adult US Facebook users' feeds during October 2020 found that 54% of users saw no news within the first 10 posts of their feeds
A look at Google Pay redesign as an all-encompassing money app with P2P payments, personal finance insights, deals, and banking services, rolling out in the US
Report: In the Middle East, $704M was invested across 564 different startups in 2019, compared to only $15M in five venture deals in 2009
A look at the growing world of virtual HQs on services like Branch, Gather, and Huddle, which are using spatial tech to create a metaverse dedicated to work
A year in, Stadia's free-to-play and added phone support are great, but it needs a successful Cyberpunk 2077 launch to be seen as a true console alternative
Canvas, which develops machine learning-powered robots for installing drywall at construction sites, emerges from stealth with $19M in funding
Fourteen states and DC released their contact tracing apps so far, with CA and others to follow, but adoption has been uneven due to politicization of COVID-19
GoDaddy confirms some of its staff fell for a social engineering scam, after hackers changed the email and DNS records for a number of crypto trading platforms
Apple Support page says the company is working with Microsoft on adding support for Xbox Series X controller to Apple devices
Google is loosening control over its Chromium project, welcoming a new outside dev into leadership, granting community access to its software development system
Twitter says it will transfer @POTUS to Joe Biden when he is sworn in as president, along with other official accounts; Facebook says it will do the same
An operator of TikTok houses, West of Hudson Group, underwent a reverse takeover with Tongji Healthcare this week, creating a publicly traded company
Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 review: great build quality and battery life with fast 11th-gen. Intel processor, but inadequate cooling system and a shallow keyboard
Google is testing Project Guideline, an AI-powered system that enables navigation guidance for low-vision people, allowing them to run races by themselves
The CIA awards its Commercial Cloud Enterprise contract to AWS, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and IBM; the project's expected value is in the "tens of billions"
a16z closes two new funds totaling $4.5B, focused on early and later-stage investments, bringing total assets under management to $16.5B
Sources: Amazon agrees to pull HBO from Fire TV's Amazon Channels next year; WarnerMedia wanted HBO out to maintain a direct relationship with users via its app
cnbc.com · 3 days ago