Our favorite post-Christmas deals on outdoor and home tech, videogames, tax software, and more.
Source: Wired
Even when sitting idle, the Ferrari 812 Superfast oozes speed and purpose.
Source: CNET
You’ve heard of wine and beer fridges, but what about an herb fridge? LG thinks this full-size greens grower will be the next big thing.
Source: CNET
Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit group that operates Wikipedia and a number of other projects, has urged the Indian government to rethink the proposed changes to the nation’s intermediary liability rules that would affect swathes of companies and the way more than half a billion people access information online.
The organization has also urged the Indian government to make public the latest proposed changes to the intermediary rules so that all stakeholders have a chance to participate in a “robust and informed debate about how the internet should be governed in India.�
India proposed changes to intermediary rules (PDF) in late December last year and it is expected to approve it in the coming months. Under the proposal, the Indian Ministry of Electronics and IT requires “intermediaryâ€� apps — which as per its definition, includes any service with more than 5 million users — to set up a local office and have a senior executive in the nation who can be held responsible for any legal issues.
Amanda Keton, general counsel of Wikimedia Foundation, said on Thursday that India’s proposed changes to the intermediary rules may have serious impact on Wikipedia’s business — as it operates an open editing model that relies on users to contribute new articles and make changes to existing articles on Wikipedia — as well as those of other organizations.
The rules may also create a “significant financial burden� for nonprofit technology organizations and impede free expression rights for internet users in India, she said. Wikimedia Foundation conveyed its concerns to Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Minister of Electronics and IT in India. The company also published the letter on its blog for the world to see.
India’s latest changes to intermediary rules, which have been drafted to make the internet a safer experience for local residents, also require intermediaries to deploy automated tools “for proactively identifying and removing or disabling public access to unlawful information or content.�
The proposed changes have raised concerns for many. In a joint letter (PDF) earlier this year, Mozilla, Microsoft’s GitHub and Wikimedia had cautioned the Indian government that requiring intermediaries to proactively purge their platforms of unlawful content “would upend the careful balance set out in the existing law which places liability on the bad actors who engage in illegal activities, and only holds companies accountable when they know of such acts.â€�
The groups also cautioned that drafted measures “would significantly expand surveillance requirements on internet services.” Several trade bodies in India, that represent a number of major firms including Google and Facebook, have also suggested major changes to the proposal.
In the open letter published today, Wikimedia’s Keton reiterated several of those concerns, adding that “neither participants in the consultation nor the public have seen a new draft of these rules since [last year].� She also requested the government to redefine, how it has in another recently proposed set of rules, the way it classifies an entity as an intermediary as the current version seems to have far-reaching scope.
India is the fifth largest market for Wikipedia — more than 771 million users from the country visited the online encyclopaedia last month. Wikimedia has run several programs in India to invite people to expand the online encyclopaedia in Indic languages.
Keton urged the government to rethink the requirement to bring “traceability� on online communication, as doing so would interfere with the ability of Wikipedia contributors to freely participate in the project. (On the point of traceability, WhatsApp has said complying to such requirement would compromise encryption for every user.)
Source: TechCrunch
The day after Christmas brought an annular eclipse to part of the eastern hemisphere, and you better believe the cameras came out to catch it.
Source: CNET
Looking for the best DNA test kits available to buy now? Here are your top options.
Source: CNET
December has been a strong month for Brazilian startups, bringing a big IPO and a new unicorn for local companies. Tech-driven investment firm XP Investimentos went public on the U.S. Stock Exchange in mid-December, raising $1.81 billion in the fourth-largest IPO of 2019. XP’s stock price jumped 30% on its first day of trading, from $27 per share to $34.50.Â
XP was founded in 2001 to provide brokerage training classes to Brazilians to help them invest in the international stock market. Today, it is a full-service brokerage firm, providing fund management and distribution to more than 1.5 million customers in Brazil.Â
Notably, XP has outlined a strategy for beating Brazilian banks, among the most profitable in the world, in its 354-page report to the SEC. Brazil’s banking market is highly concentrated, with the top five players dominating 93% of market share. This concentration has led to significant inefficiencies that XP tries to disrupt by offering a variety of financial products through an accessible online platform.Â
The heavy bureaucracy of these banks will prevent them from innovating quickly enough to compete with newer institutions like XP, whose debt products are attractive to frustrated Brazilian customers. The inefficiency of the Brazilian financial system has opened opportunities for companies like XP, or neobank Nubank, to rapidly attract customers who are disgruntled with the traditional system.Â
Brazil has seen a new unicorn emerge almost every month this year, and December was no exception. Gaming startup Wildlife raised a $60 million Series A round led by U.S.-investor Benchmark Capital at a $1.3 billion valuation to become the country’s eleventh unicorn. This round was big even for Silicon Valley standards, and it is uncommon for startups even in markets like the U.S. or Europe to hit a $1 billion-plus valuation in such an early round.Â
Wildlife has created more than 60 games since 2011, including Zooba and Tennis Clash, which have both reached global acclaim. Founded by brothers Victor and Arthur Lazarte, Wildlife operates on a freemium model that only charges users for in-app purchases. They plan to use the funding to double their employee base and grow to $2 billion in 2020, continuing the 80% yearly growth they have seen since 2011.Â
Konfio provides small business loans in Mexico through an online platform to help SMEs gain liquidity and grow their operations. These small businesses are often overlooked by banks in Mexico and Latin America, which do not know how to price risk for businesses that process less than $10 million per year.Â
Konfio recently raised $100 million from SoftBank’s Innovation Fund, the third investment that SoftBank has made into Mexico since launching the fund. The capital will go toward financing working capital loans, as well as creating new products for Konfio’s customers. Today, Konfio’s loans average around $12,000, while banks still struggle to loan less than $40,000. The tech-driven platform allows Konfio to disburse loans within 24 hours without requiring collateral.
Small business lending is a tremendous opportunity in Latin America, where banks are among the most profitable and the least competitive in the world. Brazil’s Creditas and Colombia’s OmniBnk are among the other startups providing innovative products that calculate risk more effectively than banks in Latin America’s complex lending environment.
The Albo team has raised $26.4 million to scale its leading neobank.
In an extension of a Series A round, Mexico’s albo raised a further $19 million from Valar Ventures to bring their newest round to $26.4 million in total. Albo previously raised $7.4 million from Mountain Nazca, Omidyar Network and Greyhound Capital in January 2019. Albo’s mission is to provide banking services to unbanked and underbanked clients in Mexico. More than half of albo’s customers claim that albo was their first-ever bank account.Â
Founded by Angel Sahagun in 2016, albo quickly became Mexico’s largest neobank, serving more than 200,000 customers and sending out thousands of new cards every day. The investment from Valar Ventures, founded by Peter Thiel (also an investor in N26 and TransferWise), is a vote of confidence for this Mexican fintech. Albo has also previously received investment from Arkfund, Magma Partners and Mexican angels.Â
Albo plans to use the capital to develop new products, including savings and credit services, in the coming year. Mexico will likely be a battleground for Latin American neobanks in 2020, as Klar, Nubank and potentially Argentina’s Uala will begin to grow in the region’s second-largest market. While there is room for several competitive neobanks to thrive in Mexico, this industry will be one to watch in 2020.
Goldman Sachs loaned $125 million to MercadoLibre to continue developing their credit product, MercadoCredito. MercadoLibre will use the capital to triple its $100 million debt facility for small business loans in Mexico. To date, MercadoCredito has loaned more than $610 million to 270,000 businesses around the region in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.Â
Brazilian cloud-kitchen startup Mimic raised $9 million in a seed round led by Monashees to develop a more efficient food delivery model in Brazil. Mimic will exclusively manage the logistics of “dark kitchens,� which exist only for delivery and have no sit-down facilities, saving time and money for clients. Mimic will use the investment to grow its team.
An early-stage online lending startup in Brazil, Rebel, recently raised $10 million from Monashees and Fintech Collective to provide unsecured loans to middle-class Brazilians at affordable rates. Rebel has lowered rates to around 2.9% per month, compared to 40-400% at Brazil’s largest banks. The startup uses a proprietary algorithm to calculate risk for clients and provide loans rapidly through its online platform.Â
Colombia’s Rappi recently announced an expansion into Ecuador, where it has rapidly reached 100,000 users between Quito and Guayaquil, the country’s two largest cities. Rappi is now active in nine countries and more than 50 cities in Latin America.Â
Given the arrival of the SoftBank Innovation Fund, Latin American startup investment in 2019 will likely more than double the $2 billion invested in 2018. Here are a few of the highlights we saw this year:
Latin America’s startup and investment ecosystem has likely more than doubled this year as compared to 2019. As international investors like SoftBank, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, Accel, Tencent and others are taking more bets on the region, more startups than ever have scaled and reached unicorn status. These startups will continue to scale in 2020, taking on a regional presence to provide services to Latin America’s 650 million population.
Source: TechCrunch
La tecnologÃa promete modelos más pequeños y potentes, y que podrÃan fabricarse directamente en los propios productos a los que alimenten. Eso es justo lo que el mundo necesita para impulsar su transición hacia la energÃa renovable, pero también necesitará que sean fáciles de reciclar
Source: MIT
Solemos pensar que los más pequeños confÃan ciegamente en cualquier información que reciben, venga de quien venga. Pero cada vez más estudios demuestran que hacen más caso a sus profesores y amigos que a los asistentes de voz, a los que bombardean con preguntas para poner a prueba su fiabilidad
Source: MIT
La ciudad de Chattanooga, famosa por sus incidentes raciales, ha lanzado un formulario ‘online’ para que sus habitantes denuncien de forma anónima las expresiones contra grupos minoritarios. Con esta información, el Gobierno espera cortar el odio de raÃz antes de que se convierta en violencia
Source: MIT