Russian entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are leaving the country. Western sanctions and political instability make it impossible to run an international business in Russia. Russia has attempted to block Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, albeit with mixed results. Russian tech services are either banned or begin to retreat.
Apple and Samsung both announced new phones that are priced hundreds of dollars below the headline-grabbing iPhone 13 and Galaxy S22. Apple's iPhone SE is a cheaper way to draw new shoppers into services such as iMessage, Apple TV, Apple Arcade and the full App Store. Samsung's Galaxy A53 5G has a nearly borderless screen and multilens camera.
Netflix announced it will release Tekken: Bloodline in 2022. The animated adaption will be an adaptation of the popular fighting game series. It will be the latest in a series of video game adaptations the streamer has worked on. Netflix has previously worked on DotA 2 and The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf.
District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine filed a lawsuit against Amazon last June. The suit alleged that the company used contract provisions to prevent third-party sellers from offering their wares for less elsewhere. The Superior Court of the D.C. threw out the suit on Friday.
The metaverse is the future of the internet that will enable new worlds to bridge virtual and real experiences. Businesses will need to reimagine the possibilities because it’s about charting a course, says Daugherty. “It is the time to stake your claim in the metaverse,” he says.
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei is returning to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which is expected to take place on March 30, according to NASA officials. The agency is working with Roscosmos to continue working together on the ISS, despite geopolitical tensions.
Apple is facing one of the biggest challenges yet to how it controls and profits from the App Store. Europe prepares to complete a new competition law in the coming weeks. Failure to comply would carry penalties of up to tens of billions of dollars. The new EU legislation is set to direct Apple to allow software to be downloaded outside its App Store and limit how companies impose their own payment systems on apps.
Meta, formerly known as Facebook, will begin testing new ad placement tools this year. The tools will give advertisers control over where their ads are shown on Facebook and Instagram. The company plans to officially roll them out in early 2023. The new tools are a response to advertisers' demands for more control.
Researchers put AI normally used to search for helpful drugs into a kind of ‘bad actor’ mode to show how easily it could be abused at a biological arms control conference. The AI came up with tens of thousands of new substances, some of which are similar to VX, the most potent nerve agent ever developed.
Slack is cutting off Russian users from its platform without notice. The move is to comply with international sanctions against the country. Salesforce-owned Slack says it's exiting business in Russia. The company said it has a very small number of customers in the country and has already started exiting those relationships.
Datto is working with a financial adviser to solicit interest from potential equity firms. The company provides tools to help managed service providers run their businesses. Datto may be the target of an acquisition bid by its largest shareholder Vista Equity Partners, by another private equity firm, or by big pocked competitors such as Kaseya.