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Zara Khan

Zara Khan is a seasoned investigative journalist with a focus on social justice issues. She has won numerous awards for her groundbreaking reporting and has a reputation for fearlessly exposing wrongdoing.

Epic, Spotify, Deezer, Match Group, and additional entities unite in support of Department of Justice’s case against Apple, releasing official statement of approval

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The Coalition for App Fairness (CAF) released a statement on Thursday cheering on the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Apple. The group includes a number of key app makers, including Epic Games, Spotify, Deezer, Match Group, Proton and others. In 2020, Epic made it possible for Fortnite players to pay Epic directly, rather than giving a cut to Apple. Then, Apple removed Epic from the App Store, which sparked a slew of legal proceedings. In a statement, Apple said: “This lawsuit threatens who we are and the principles that set Apple products apart in fiercely competitive markets.

“Disproving the Monopoly Myth: A Comparison of Apple’s iPhone and Windows Dominance”

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The suit alleges that the company has a monopoly in the premium smartphone market and uses a variety of illegal tactics to perpetuate that monopoly. Apple’s monopoly position is not nearly as clear-cut. Microsoft Windows had well over 90% market share in the relevant market of operating systems for personal computers. This argument is important because Apple’s market share is much lower globally (only 23%, with number-two Samsung at 16%). There’s also a host of circumstantial proof, such as Apple’s massive and durable profit margins on iPhone sales.

Atari-Inspired: Unveiling Microsoft’s Latest Adaptive Additions: Harnessing the Allure of the Iconic Atari Joystick

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The company has offered accessibility-focused Xbox peripheral for some time and has introduced the Adaptive line of computing peripherals roughly this time last year. The Adaptive line got a refresh and a couple of new entries at this week’s virtual Windows event. This round brings back the Adaptive Mouse, which features thumb support and custom tails 3D printed by Shapeways. The Adaptive Hub is effectively an adaptive accessory for the other adaptive accessories, allowing for up to three devices and four Adaptive Buttons to be connected wirelessly. Rounding out Microsoft’s new accessibility accessories is a Surface Pro Keyboard with brighter backlighting and bolder text for users with vision impairments.

OKX Crypto Trading Halts Operations in India

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Crypto exchange OKX is ceasing services for users in India, it said in an email to customers Thursday, advising them to withdraw their funds by April-end. The move follows Apple and Google pulling the eponymous app of OKX in the country after an Indian government agency said many crypto exchanges were operating illegally in the South Asian market. Financial Intelligence Unit, the government agency, named Binance, Kraken, Huobi and Gate.io among apps operating “illegally” in India but hadn’t named OKX in its public statement. OKX has advised customers in India to close all their active margin positions and withdraw all funds by April 30. While India-based crypto exchanges continued to require rigorous know-your-customer verifications before onboarding new users, the same hasn’t been true of many global platforms.

“Crossing the Atlantic: Frontline Ventures Secures $200M to Support B2B Companies in Europe and US”

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Giant Ventures in January closed two new funds totaling $250 million that it will invest in startups on both sides of the Atlantic, and today, TechCrunch has learned exclusively that Frontline Ventures has also raised $200 million across two funds, named Frontline Growth and Frontline Seed. Frontline has historically invested in both Europe and North America, and its new funds will continue to follow that strategy, betting on B2B software companies. The new seed fund will favor European ventures, while the growth fund will focus on U.S. startups. Expansion roadmapO’Donnell told TechCrunch that when it helps portfolio companies navigate expansion to another market, Frontline focuses on four aspects: timing, go-to-market strategy, talent, and organizational design and location. That’s by order of importance, and a company’s location should be a derivative of the previous three aspects, O’Donnell said.

Data-Driven Agricultural Solutions: The Technology Behind Decreasing Food Waste and Improving Farm Success

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Globally, a third of the food produced is lost or wasted, and in Kenya, that figure stands at between 20% to 40%. Farm to Feed, an agri-tech based in Kenya, is one of the fast-risers in the space. Farm to Feed teams then sort, grade and dispatch the products to clients from its warehouse in Kenya’s Capital, Nairobi. Data collectionOn top of the e-commerce platform, Van Enk said they are building a data platform by collecting granular data including on climate and drivers of food loss, for better farming outcome and to create a more circular food system. I do think that food loss is such a huge impact opportunity and also a very good commercial opportunity,” she said.

“European Deep Tech to Receive $185 Million Investment by OTB Ventures with Support from NATO Innovation Fund”

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Not a day goes by without some confirmation that ​​deep tech is on the rise in Europe — and that public and private capital investors are here for it. Latest case in point, OTB Ventures, which closed a $185 million fund to invest in deep tech in Europe that it will mostly deploy at the Series A stage. OTB’s take on deep tech focuses on four verticals that do sound fairly NATO-compatible: space tech, enterprise automation and AI, cybersecurity and fintech infrastructure. This means we can’t confirm either whether the funding that went to OTB could also have gone to, say, a French or Austrian deep tech fund. Like NIF, OTB is headquartered in Amsterdam, and its other office is in Warsaw, where NIF is also planning to have a regional office.

Investor Demand for Tech with an AI-Twist Drives Astera Labs’ IPO to 54% Increase

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Astera Labs started its life as a public company trading at $52.56 per share, up 46% when the bell rang. Astera Labs makes connectivity hardware for cloud computing data centers. Astera Labs’ IPO price valued it at around $5.5 billion, a figure that swells to around $8.9 billion at its current trading price. The strong performance of Astera in its first hours as a public company could also ameliorate some investor activity that is holding back, or even preventing some public offerings altogether. If VCs know that the startup could pop on the public market like Astera Labs, maybe they will think about the timeline differently.

Google Fined $270M in France for Unlawful Use of News Publishers’ Data for Gemini

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Google hit with $270M fine in France as authority finds news publishers’ data was used for GeminiIn a never-ending saga between Google and France’s competition authority over copyright protections for news snippets, the Autorité de la Concurrence announced a €250 million fine against the tech giant Wednesday (around $270 million at today’s exchange rate). The competition authority has found fault with Google for failing to notify news publishers of this GenAI use of their copyrighted content. But the competition authority quickly stepped in – finding its unilateral action an abuse of a dominant market position that risked harm to publishers. But in 2021, Google was hit with a $592M fine after the competition authority found major breaches in its negotiations with local publishers and agencies. Google has signed copyright agreements with hundreds of publishers in France – which fall under the remit of its agreement with the Autorité.

“Revolutionizing Clinics: Anima Healthcare Platform Secures $12M in Funding, Empowering with Salesforce-inspired Features”

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Thankfully, there’s a new wave of startups entering the arena: UK startup Anima is a “care enablement” platform that operates almost like a combination of Slack, Salesforce and Figma, but for healthcare clinics and hospitals. Anima, a graduate of Y Combinator’s Winter 2021 batch, launched in September 2022 and is now used in 150 NHS clinics in England. The startup’s software lets clinic staff process and file healthcare documents, but adds in a higher degree of automation compared to legacy systems. In the U.S., Memora Health has raised $80.5 million, and NexHealth, which is post-Series C, has raised $177.2 million to date. I trained as a doctor at Cambridge, and I’m a self-taught software engineer who wrote a lot of the code for Anima.