As the Gulf region gains growing strategic importance for the tech war between the U.S. and China, Microsoft makes a big move into one of its richest oil countries.
The minority stake will give Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chair and president, a seat on G42’s board of directors.
The funding comes amid U.S. politicians’ escalating concerns over G42’s ties with China.
Given the two countries’ increasing economic ties, it’s no surprise that G42, the AI poster child of the UAE, has also forged ties with Chinese firms.
Under the agreement, the Emirati company’s data platform and other key technology infrastructure will migrate to Microsoft Azure, which will power G42’s AI product development.
They can both sell out Madison Square Garden (… and also, their fans kind of hate Ticketmaster now).
Dropout’s Dungeons & Dragons actual play show, Dimension 20, is getting pretty close to selling out a 19,000-seat venue just hours after ticket sales opened to the general public.
When I was playing D&D in the early eighties, I would have never believed that there was a future where people would watch live D&D at Madison Square Garden.
About an hour after the Madison Square Garden tickets went on sale, the few dozen upper bowl tickets left were $800.
Creators can sell out Madison Square Garden.
If this had been announced exactly a week prior, it would have been easy to mistake for some corporate April Foolery.
Dyson, however, assures us that augmented reality vacuuming is real and coming in June — slightly belated for spring cleaning, sadly.
When it launches over the summer, CleanTrace will be available for the Dyson Gen5detect system.
It’s not going to tip over anyone who’s on the fence about a $700 ultra-premium vacuum, but this is hardly the most ridiculous thing Dyson has shown the world.
“We realized that we could all learn a thing or two from the methodical cleaning approach of our robot vacuums,” Dyson VP of engineering Charlie Park notes.
Turkey has gained a well-earned reputation as a veritable cauldron of mobile games startups, leading to the rise of VCs dedicated to the sector.
The latest to join this coterie is Laton Ventures, a new gaming-focused VC that has raised a $35 million fund.
Indeed, between 2018 and 2022 Turkish gaming start-ups raised more than $1 billion in funding.
There are now at least 25 VC funds that invest in video games startups based out of Turkey.
“We’re positioning as a bridge between the Turkish gaming ecosystem, which is booming, and the international gaming ecosystem.
Footage obtained by TechCrunch shows the catastrophic ending that Astra’s Rocket 3.0 suffered during prelaunch testing in March 2020.
“I can confirm we had an anomaly on the launch pad,” Alaska Aerospace CEO Mark Lester told local reporters at the time.
At the time, Astra was taking such failures in stride.
The deal is expected to close sometime this quarter, at which time Astra will cease trading on the Nasdaq.
Astra did not return a request for comment on the 2020 launch failure.
Climate change.
The UK will be even better off, gaining 40 outdoor days by the end of the century.
Illinois will lose more than a month of outdoor days by the 2080s as the summers grow unbearably hot.
Nigeria’s summers will grow even hotter and longer, lopping off nearly two months of outdoor days.
Both Nigeria and India would only lose one month of outdoor days, and more northerly regions retain some of their added outdoor days.
Watchworthy will now tell you which streaming services to cancel and which to keepTV recommendation app Watchworthy released two new features to give viewers access to more personalized recommendations, including a new recommendation category for streaming services and a collaborative watchlist to get movie suggestions for your entire friend group.
Watchworthy is best known for its “worthy” score, which tells you the likelihood that a TV show or movie is worth your time.
For instance, if you’re obsessed with home improvement shows, Watchworthy recommends Discovery+ as a top pick, listing it as 95-99% worthy.
As major streaming services continue increasing subscription costs, viewers are having a hard time deciding which subscription is worth investing in.
Watchworthy helps you discover over 200 streaming services, such as Netflix, Max, Disney+ Prime Video, Peacock, Paramount+, Apple TV+, and Hulu, among others.
Don Lemon announced on Wednesday that X owner Elon Musk has canceled the deal for his upcoming talkshow on the platform.
Lemon, a former CNN anchor, says Musk terminated the partnership hours after he interviewed the multibillionaire for the first episode of the show.
“Elon Musk has canceled the partnership I had with X, which they announced as part of their public commitment to amplifying more diverse voices on their platform,” Lemon wrote in a statement.
“He informed me of his decision hours after an interview I conducted with him on Friday.”Despite the canceled deal with X, The Don Lemon Show will live on.
The interview with Musk will remain the premiere episode of the show and is scheduled to air on March 18 on YouTube, podcast channels and X.
The “State of Subscription Apps” report offers a bird’s-eye view into the subscription app universe, as RevenueCat has nearly 30,000 apps using its platform’s tools to manage their monetization.
Outside of Apple and Google, that makes RevenueCat the largest collection of subscription app developers on one platform.
For instance, 59% of the apps that reach $1,000 will go on to reach $2,500 and 60% of the apps that reach $2,500 will make it to $5,000.
The report highlights other aspects of the race to subscription app monetization, as well, including that North America-based apps have 4x the monetization of the global average.
The larger report gets into more specifics that will be useful to subscription app developers, including details about subscription packages, pricing, trial strategies, conversion, refund rates, retention, growth, and more.
BLKFAM considers its platform the first and only Black-owned and Black-focused family streaming service.
The company’s goal is to serve Black audiences who often feel misrepresented/underrepresented in mainstream media even though it’s the demographic that watches the most TV.
According to Nielsen, Black audiences consume over 81 hours of media on a weekly basis.
BLKFAM aims to release content that “entertains, educates, and celebrates Black American family-friendly content,” the company wrote in its press release.
BLKFAM is now available on Amazon Prime Video Channels, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Roku, YouTube TV, Samsung Smart TVs, Vizio, LG, and iOS and Android devices.
