Dear Inside Community, Our most popular event series is coming back on May 24th and 25th, and we want you to be there! Meet Our Fund 3 brings together an all-star lineup of venture capitalists ready to pitch you on what they invest in and how they add value for founders. Register here, and check out the speakers we have already announced. There will be plenty more to come in the weeks ahead. It’s going to be our biggest Meet Our Fund yet. —The Inside Team |
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 Google plans to invest $9.5B into U.S. offices and data centers in 2022, a 35% increase from what it spent last year. The investment in 12+ states is expected to create around 12,000 new full-time jobs this year, according to the company. More: - Google plans to open a new office in Atlanta, expand a data center in Nevada, grow its New York presence, and build out its campus in Boulder, Colorado.
- It has further plans to invest in data centers in Tennessee, Virginia, and Oklahoma, as well as existing offices in Austin, Cambridge, and Pittsburgh.
- In a blog post, CEO Sundar Pichai acknowledged that the investment in physical offices seems "counterintuitive" given that many of its employees still work remotely at least part-time.
- But the company believes it's "more important than ever" to invest in its campuses, which Pichai argued will result in better products, communities, and quality of life for employees.
Zoom-out: - Google has asked its employees in the Bay Area and several other locations to return to physical offices this month under a hybrid work plan.
- Many of its employees now work from the office about three days a week. The mandate has drawn criticism from some staff who want to have the option to work remotely when they choose, especially with Bay Area housing and gas prices being so high.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 
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Apple CEO Tim Cook once again warned that proposed antitrust rules meant to foster competition would threaten the iPhone's privacy and security. Cook made the comments in the keynote at Tuesday's IAPP Global Privacy Summit, where he denounced efforts to make the iPhone more accessible to third-party developers. More: - Policymakers in the U.S. and Europe have introduced legislation that would force Apple to allow sideloading.
- The process would enable iPhone users to download apps from third parties outside of Apple's App Store, circumventing its fees.
- Since Apple vets all of its apps and updates, Cook warned that allowing third-party programs to be downloaded would open up iPhone users to spyware and malware infections.
- He argued that sideloading would allow "data-hungry companies" to avoid Apple's privacy rules and track people without their permission.
- Taking away Apple's security would leave users with less choice, not more, he argued.
Zoom-out: - During his speech, Cook did not point to any specific legislation.
- In February, the Open App Markets Act was passed by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. The bill, which has yet to get a floor vote, would force Apple to allow sideloading on iOS.
- The EU also included a similar provision in its initial Digital Markets Act unveiled in March.
- Supporters note that Apple's stronghold via its App Store allows it to charge an up to 30% commission on in-app purchases.
CNET
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 Pixel 6a render from OnLeaks Google could launch its Pixel 6a smartphone in May, an FCC listing suggests. The next model in the budget-friendly Pixel A-series could be revealed at Google's I/O developer conference in May, reports suggest. More: - The Pixel 4a and 5a both launched later in August.
- However, Google could have a mid-year release for the 6a, as it did for the original Pixel 3a and 3a XL budget phones. The company typically releases phones about a month after its FCC listing.
- The listing suggests the the Pixel 6a will have 5G support including mmWave 5G for Verizon.
- Previous tweets and reports have leaked some specs, including a full HD+ display with 90Hz refresh rate, in-screen fingerprint reader, a dual-camera setup, and a Google-made Tensor chip paired with 6GB to 8GB of RAM.
- Its 6.2-inch screen size is smaller than the Pixel 6 (6.4-inch) and Pixel 6 Pro (6.7-inch)
ENGADGET
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GOOD NEWS: Stripe, Alphabet, Meta, Shopify, and McKinsey have pledged a combined $925M to purchase carbon-capture technologies from now through 2030. The companies launched Frontier, an initiative that's meant to build momentum and spur new technologies for the carbon capture market. More: - The nascent technology, which draws carbon dioxide from the air, is still costly and not ready for large-scale deployment.
- Through the Frontier project, the companies hope to accelerate its development and scale up its deployment by buying permanent carbon removal from suppliers developing new solutions.
- The funding will go to early-stage suppliers through low-volume pre-purchase agreements. Frontier will also facilitate advanced purchases between buyers and carbon-capture suppliers who are ready to scale.
- It intends to signal to researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors that the market for permanent carbon removal is there.
- Frontier is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Stripe. The remaining companies have provided the initial funding.
PROTOCOL
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 A message from LOHIKA Q: How do engineering leaders at Okta, LinkedIn and Collective define the strategy and vision for their teams? A: Register for our online event this month to find out! On April 26, 2022 at 10:30am PT / 1:30pm ET, we’re co-hosting an online event "How to Define the Strategy and Vision for Engineering Teams" with our friends from Managers Club. Vidal Graupera, Engineering Manager, Productivity Tools UI/UX and IDEs at LinkedIn will moderate a panel discussion. The panelists: The panel will discuss: - How do you define a strategy and vision in the first place?
- What’s the basis for a strategy and vision – business goals, executive mandates, other?
- What’s the best mechanism for communicating the strategy?
- … and more!
We hope you can join us!
Register Here
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 Privacy-centric search engine DuckDuckGo has launched its first desktop browser for Mac in beta. The company intends to follow up with a Windows version due out before the end of the year. More: - DuckDuckGo already has mobile browsers for iOS and Android.
- On Tuesday, the company launched macOS in beta, which is available through a private waitlist.
- It's designed to be an "everyday browser" that protects a user's privacy rather than a replacement for incognito mode, according to the firm.
- The Mac app has a built-in private search engine, tracker blocker, email protection, Fire Button to wipe browser data and tabs, automatic cookie tracking rejection, and other privacy-centric features.
- A Smarter Encryption feature redirects users to the encrypted version of sites through forced HTTPS.
- The company says its browser is “significantly faster” than Google Chrome. It's said to use 60% fewer data than Chrome.
ARS TECHNICA
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Crypto-payments firm MoonPay announced it has secured $87M in its latest funding round from high-profile investors including Justin Bieber, Bruce Willis, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Maria Sharapova. Just over 15% of the funding came from 60+ actors, musicians, and other celebrities, per Bloomberg. More: - Celebrities have used MoonPay's concierge service to purchase Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs and other digital assets.
- The company is bullish on the creator economy. NFTs provide a way for creators to market their work, manage their royalties, and connect to fans, according to MoonPay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright.
- The Miami-based company describes itself as a "PayPal for the crypto economy."
- Its payment infrastructure allows users to buy and sell digital assets and exchange crypto using debit and credit cards, mobile wallets, and bank transfers.
- Using a “crypto-as-a-service" model, the company sells its tech to other companies including Bitcoin.com and NFT marketplace OpenSea.
- The company raised $555M in its Series A round disclosed in November. The investment pushed the startup's valuation to $3.4B.
- More than 10 million customers have now processed close to $3B in transactions through the platform, MoonPay said.
COINDESK
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QUICK HITS: - B2B businesses are switching to e-commerce. Now, it's your turn. Learn three persuasive approaches that communicate the value of digital to decision-makers.*
- "Honor of Kings" publisher Tencent was the top mobile publisher worldwide in 2022, according to analytics firm data.ai. NetEase and Activision Blizzard came in second and third.
- TikTok has made its augmented reality development tools available to all users.
- Waze had added a Retro Mode with 70s, 80s, and 90s themes to its navigation app.
- Hasbro announced plans to acquire D&D Beyond, a mobile and web app that provides tools for "Dungeons & Dragons" players. Hasbro is the parent of Wizards of the Coast, the tabletop game's developer.
- According to a report from CNBC, so far, CNN+ has drawn about 10,000 daily viewers.
*This is sponsored content.
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Upcoming Events: - April 13 - Achieve 1M+ Record/Second Kafka Ingest without Sacrificing Query Latency. (Register Here) *
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- May 19 - Understanding Fractionalization (Register Here)
- May 24 - Meet Our Fund 3 (Register Here)
- May 31 - Ethereum Merge with Anthony Donofrio (Ethereum) (Register Here)
- June 01 - Selling Consumer Goods in Web3 (Register Here)
- June 09 - Empowering Content Creators with No Code (Register Here)
* This is a sponsored event.
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 |  | Beth is a writer and analyst at Inside.com covering artificial intelligence and daily tech news. Since starting work at Inside, she has covered various topics including virtual reality, drones, and e-commerce. Prior to that she was a public policy and investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic, where she won a Pulitzer Prize nomination and First Amendment Award for reporting on the rising costs of pensions. Reach her at Beth.Duckett@inside.com. |   | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is writing an illustrated book about climate change that will be published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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