Tech

In this articleMSFTHopin CEO Johnny Boufarhat.HopinMicrosoft CEO Satya Nadella laid out his plans in March for a future of hybrid work. Now, his company’s LinkedIn division is wagering that people will continue to convene online even after offices reopen.Virtual conference technology company Hopin, which was valued at $5.65 billion in a $400 million financing round in March, has just added LinkedIn to its roster of investors. The company told CNBC that LinkedIn invested at that same valuation, buying shares from existing stakeholders. The investment was under $50 million, according to two people familiar with the terms of the deal, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information.”Virtual events are here to stay,” Scott Roberts, LinkedIn’s vice president of business development, said in a statement. “We recognize our customers use many platforms, so we want to make it easy for them to extend the reach of their live events onto LinkedIn.”Hopin CEO Johnny Boufarhat said the companies will be collaborating in ways that will bring “immersive experiences” to users of both services. With 756 million members, LinkedIn has near ubiquity among workers in industries like tech, finance, consulting and consumer products, creating an easy place for Hopin to potentially

In this article9984.T-JPThe logo of SoftBank Group in Tokyo.Philip Fong | AFP via Getty ImagesLONDON — SoftBank is aiming to put its money where its mouth is on diversity.SoftBank Investment Advisers, which manages the Japanese conglomerate’s Vision Fund for tech investing, said Wednesday it will launch its diversity-focused Emerge accelerator program in Europe.The company first introduced Emerge last year in the U.S. with WeWork Labs, the office rental firm’s start-up incubator, to back 14 start-ups whose founders come from underrepresented backgrounds. SoftBank says it has invested $5 million across 13 start-ups in the program so far.Now, SoftBank is bringing Emerge to Europe — but with a twist. This time, it’s bringing in Speedinvest and a number of other notable venture capital investors in the continent to provide access to a broader network of potential investors and partners.”Softbank is a famous investor in the later stages, with massive global successes” such as Uber, Oliver Holle, co-founder and managing partner of Speedinvest, told CNBC in an interview. “But they are not set up for investing in those very early nascent stages of company building.”Other venture funds participating in the European program include Breega, Cherry Ventures, firstminute capital and Kindred.Start-up accelerator programs are

The seal of the F.B.I. hangs in the Flag Room at the bureau’s headquarters.Chip Somodevilla | Getty ImagesThe FBI’s breach of a bitcoin wallet held by the cyber criminals who attacked Colonial Pipeline is all about sloppy storage, and not a reflection of a security vulnerability in the digital currency, crypto experts told CNBC.On Monday, the Justice Department reported a successful mission to retrieve $2.3 million in bitcoin paid by Colonial Pipeline to ransomware hackers in April. Court documents indicated that investigators traced bitcoin transaction records to a digital wallet, which they subsequently seized under court order. Officials were then able to access that wallet with something called a “private key,” or password. It remains unclear how exactly the FBI retrieved the key. “I don’t want to give up our tradecraft in case we want to use this again for future endeavors,” Elvis Chan, an assistant special agent with the FBI’s San Francisco office, said in a news call Monday.How the FBI likely seized bitcoinUntil the FBI is more transparent with its methods, it’s not possible to know exactly how federal investigators managed to retrieve the private key in question. But there are a few possible scenarios. DarkSide, the cyber criminal gang that

In this articleGOOGL SOPA Images | Contributor | Getty ImagesLONDON — Google said Tuesday that it will stop charging a fee for search engines to appear in a list of default search engines on Android that’s exclusive to European users.The so-called “choice screen” was introduced by Google in 2019 in response to a record $5 billion antitrust fine from the European Union targeting anti-competitive practices in its smartphone software.Search engines would have to take part in blind auctions in which they bid to appear in the choice screen — which is shown to users when setting up their device — in various EU countries.Now, Google has scrapped the auctions, in a key concession to the U.S. internet giant’s smaller competitors.Google said that after “further feedback” from the European Commission — the EU’s executive body — “we are now making some final changes to the Choice Screen including making participation free for eligible search providers.””We will also be increasing the number of search providers shown on the screen,” Oliver Bethell, director of competition legal at Google, said in a blog post. “These changes will come into effect from September this year on Android devices.”In 2018, the EU fined Google $5 billion for

In this articleAAPLBenchmark’s Bill Gurley said Tuesday that Apple set itself up for trouble years ago when it implemented its 30% take rate of in-app purchases, a figure that’s been under increased scrutiny.”I’d always rather see a company have a lower rake and have a very long sustainable future, and I felt the 30% number was so high and so egregious that you were going to set yourself up for the exact type difficulty you’re having right now,” Gurley, who led the firm’s investments in companies like GrubHub and Zillow, said in interview on CNBC’s TechCheck.Apple has for years taken 30% from purchases of software or digital goods from apps distributed through the App Store. But developers have alleged that Apple’s App Store platform is unfair to smaller companies, and last year Apple lowered the commission to 15% for apps with less than $1 million in annual net sales on its platform. Most recently, Epic Games sued Apple and argued in court that the company’s App Store is anti-competitive.Apple has denied the allegations and has said it “does not have a dominant market share in any category where we do business.” In response to the suit, Apple is arguing that it built the

The logo of US cloud computing services provider Fastly is seen on a smartphone screen.Pavlo Gonchar | SOPA Images | LightRocket via Getty ImagesA slew of major websites including Amazon, Reddit and news publishers like The New York Times were affected by a massive internet outage Tuesday.The outages started at around 6 a.m. ET, with users reporting they were receiving error messages including “Error 503 Service Unavailable” and “connection failure” when attempting to visit various websites.The sites — which also included the U.K. government website —  are now mostly back online.Early reports have pointed the blame at Fastly, an American cloud computing services firm. Fastly’s status page said Tuesday morning that it was investigating a technical issue. It now says the issue has been resolved.Shares of Fastly were down in U.S. premarket trading, but rose as much as 6% as markets opened for trading Tuesday.What is Fastly?Fastly operates what’s known as a content delivery network, or CDN.CDNs are networks of servers and data centers distributed around the world that allow for the transfer of assets needed for loading internet content.The company describes its technology as an “edge cloud” platform, which essentially means it places its infrastructure closer to the location

In this articleFBAAPLApple Share PlaySource: AppleStarting this fall, the decade-long spat between Apple and Facebook will start a new chapter. And this part of the story has Apple encroaching on Facebook’s territory in ways it never has before.On Monday, Apple revealed several new social features that will come to iPhones and iPads with the launch of iOS 15 this fall.Soon, iPhone users will be able to hold FaceTime video calls with Android and Windows users for the first time. They will also be able to use a new feature called SharePlay, which lets you hold a FaceTime call and watch a streaming movie, listen to music, or share your screen with your contacts. IMessage is getting a boost as well, with new features that make it easier to share web links, photos, Apple Music tracks and Apple News articles with your contacts.In short, Apple is laying the groundwork for a suite of social features designed to let you do a lot of what you would normally do on Instagram and Facebook, only with more emphasis on privacy. Think of it as a watered-down social network without all the bloat and annoying stuff you find in other apps.It’s the kind of

In this articleNYTCofounder and executive chair of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian.Jerod Harris | Getty ImagesReddit and global news websites including the FT, New York Times and Bloomberg are experiencing an outage, with some users unable to access the sites.Some visitors to the websites in both the U.K. and U.S. received the error message: “Error 503 Service Unavailable.”The U.K. government website, gov.uk, is also affected.U.S. cloud computing services provider Fastly is currently experiencing a technical issue.In an update at 5:58 a.m. ET the firm said on its website that it was investigating the issue. It has provided several updates since saying it is continuing to investigate.Fastly operates a content delivery (or distribution) network. This is a network of servers and data centers around the world that enables the transfer of assets needed for loading internet content like HTML pages, javascript files, images, and videos.Matt Taylor, a product manager at the FT, wrote on Twitter: “Fastly, the CDN provider, is having a massive outage, resulting in Twitch, Pinterest, Reddit, The Guardian, and the FT returning 503 errors.”This is a developing news story.

In this articleGOOGLAMZNMSFT700-HK9988-HKZhang Jianfeng, president of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, speaks during the opening ceremony of Alibaba Renhe Cloud Data Center on September 16, 2020 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province of China.Qian Chenfei | China News Service | Getty ImagesGUANGZHOU, China — Alibaba has launched a slew of new cloud computing products as the Chinese e-commerce giant looks to expand across Asia.Cloud computing is seen as a key profit driver for Alibaba over the long term and in the past few years, it has been boosting its presence aggressively outside of China.On Tuesday, Alibaba announced plans to open a new data center in the Philippines by the end of the year and launched a third data center in Indonesia. Expanding data centers allows cloud providers to boost their capacity in certain countries or regions.Alibaba also launched a cloud-based livestreaming product designed for online shopping. It will allow e-commerce players to launch a live stream shopping feature on their websites or apps that are hosted on Alibaba’s cloud.Livestream shopping usually involves a host talking about products that customers can buy directly via the live broadcast. It has become very popular in China and is growing in other parts of Asia.The Chinese e-commerce firm

In this articleAAPLVarious models of the Apple Inc. iPad at the company’s Yeouido store during its opening in Seoul, South Korea, on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021.Jean Chung | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesApple could hit a $3 trillion market capitalization in 2022, according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, who is bullish on the tech giant.The iPhone maker’s shares are down about 5% year-to-date. Earlier this year, investors dumped the company’s stocks following a historic December quarter.Apple is the world’s most valuable company with a current market cap of around $2.1 trillion. It crossed the first trillion in 2018 and the $2 trillion mark in 2020. Analysts, including Ives, have previously talked about Apple’s roadmap to the record $3 trillion mark.”We think ultimately 12 to 18 months from now,” Ives told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Tuesday when asked about a possible timeline to the next milestone.”If you look at the innovation, if you look at the supercycle playing out in the services business right now, I believe this is just sort of the next stage of growth,” Ives said, adding it is set to prove to skeptics that Apple remains focused on innovation.In late April, Ives increased Apple’s price target from