World Of News

As I write this Elon Musk has joined Clubhouse for his first-ever in-person session and the boundaries of the app have already been tested. Only 5,000 people are in the room, BUT… the session is being live-streamed from here or here . I am dusting off my creaky live-blogging skillz to cover the session… and will update this post as we go (apologies for appalling typos in the interim). Musk initially talked about going gong to Mars and said it was likely to be a “hard” for the early pioneers, but that it would be a matter of keeping the “candle of civilization alive in the dark”. Asked if he believed in aliens, he said there wasn’t a single piece of conclusive evidence for the existence of aliens, although it’s “quite possible” there is such a thing as Alien tech, at least at a “7/11” level, and a joked that they evidence so far suggests they might be at the “500 Megapixel camera” or “at least iPhone 6 level”. He said his kids were not quite into the idea of going to Mars. Asked

Speaking is one of the hardest parts of learning a new language, especially if you don’t have someone to practice with regularly. ELSA is an app that helps by using speech recognition technology to correct pronunciation. Based in San Francisco and Ho Chi Minh City, ELSA announced today it has raised a $15 million Series B, led by VI (Vietnam Investments) Group and SIG. Other participants included returning investors Google’s AI-focused fund Gradient Ventures, SOSV and Monk’s Hill Ventures, along with Endeavor Catalyst and Globant Ventures. The capital will be used to expand ELSA’s operations in Latin America and build a scalable B2B platform, allowing companies and educational organizations to offers the app’s coaching services to employees or students. Founded in 2015, ELSA, which stands for English Language Speech Assistant, now claims more than 13 million users. Its last round of funding was a $7 million Series A announced in 2019. Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI fund, leads $7M

Ben , a London-based employee benefits and rewards platform, has raised $2.5 million in funding. The seed round is led by Cherry Ventures, and Seedcamp. A number of angel investors with backgrounds in fintech and HR tech also participated. They include Paul Forster (founder of Indeed), Taavet Hinrikus (founder of TransferWise), Carlos Gonzalez-Cadenas (previously an exec at GoCardless but now a partner at Index Ventures ), Philip Reynolds (VP of Engineering at Workday), and Matt Robinson (founder of Nested). Part fintech, part HR play, Ben has built an employee benefits platform to enable SMEs to offer much more personalised and flexible benefits to employees. The U.K. startup does this via a SaaS for managing benefits, including a benefits marketplace, combined with per-employee debit cards powered by Mastercard. The idea is to give employees more individual choice around which benefits they choose, while making it easy to on-board additional providers. This can be via the marketp

Despite China’s history of stringent media control, an industry of uninstitutionalized, individual publishers has managed to flourish on social media platforms like Tencent’s WeChat and ByteDance’s Toutiao. These self-publishers are called “We Media” in the Chinese internet lexicon, denoting the independent power of citizen journalists and content creators. Meanwhile, self-publishers have always had to tread carefully on what they post or risk being targeted by censors who deem them illegal or inappropriate. The topics they cover are myriad, ranging from fashion and food to politics and current affairs. WeChat, a major destination for self-publishers, hinted last July it had 20 million “public accounts” , platforms for individuals to broadcast content and in businesses’ case, reach customers. In 2020, 360 million users read articles published on WeChat public accounts, WeChat founder Allen Zhang disclosed recently. Sina Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, has long attracted citizen

Access to the internet in Myanmar dropped sharply after the military detained leaders of ruling party National League for Democracy , including Aung San Suu Kyi, and declared a state of emergency. The NLD won a wide majority of parliamentary seats in November’s general election , which the military alleges was the result of election fraud. In a statement on military-owned television, the army said a year-long state of emergency would be declared in Myanmar and power handed to military chief Min Aung Hlaing. According to NetBlocks , a non-governmental organization that monitors digital rights, cybersecurity and internet governance around the world, internet disruptions began around 3AM Monday morning local time, with national connectivity falling to 75% of ordinary levels, and then reaching about 50% around 8AM. Data shows that the cuts affected several network operators, including the state-owned Myanma Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) and Telenor. NetBlocks said “preliminary findin

You’ve just landed on the web version of my weekly newsletter, Human Capital. It’s where we look at the recent events of the week pertaining to diversity, equity, inclusion and labor in tech. You can sign up her e to get Human Capital delivered straight to your inbox every Friday at 1 p.m. PT. Let’s jump in. Alpha Global forms to unite Alphabet workers around the world Alpha Global announced its formation earlier this week to unite Alphabet workers around the world, including those from the Alphabet Workers Union in the United States, The Verge reported . Alpha Global, which is affiliated with the UNI Global Union, aims to create a common worker strategy, support fellow workers and more.  “A just Alphabet has wide-ranging implications for our democracies and societies,” Alpha Global said in a statement . “That is why we are joining together to demand fundamental human rights for all workers in Alphabet operations, including the right to form or join a union and the right to bar

Hello friends, this is Week in Review. Last week , I dove into the AR maneuverings of Apple and Facebook and what that means for the future of the web. This week, I’m aiming to touch the meme stock phenomenon that dominated American news cycles this week and see if there’s anything worth learning from it, with an eye towards the future web. If you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox every Saturday morning from the newsletter page , and follow my tweets @lucasmtny . (Photo by Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images) The big thing This week was whatever you wanted it to be. A rising up of the proletariat. A case of weaponized disinformation. A rally for regulation… or perhaps deregulation of financial markets. Choose your own adventure with the starting point being one flavor of chaos leading into a slightly more populist blend of chaos. At the end of it, a lot of long-time financiers are confused, a lot of internet users are using rent money