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Chinese apps are losing their hold on India to local developers Dec 26, 2019

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Apps from Chinese developers have been gaining popularity on Indian app stores for sometime. Last year, as many as 44 of the top 100 Android apps in India were developed by Chinese firms. But things have changed this year as local developers put on a fight. According to app analytics and marketing firm AppsFlyer, Indian apps as a whole have recaptured their original standing.

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No, Spotify, you shouldn’t have sent mysterious USB drives to journalists Dec 25, 2019

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Last week, Spotify sent out a number of branded-USB drives to reporters with a note: “Play me.” It’s not uncommon for reporters to to receive USB drives in the post. Companies distribute USB drives all the time, including at tech conferences, often containing promotional materials or large files, such as videos that would otherwise be difficult to get into as many hands as possible.

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SoftBank Vision Fund invests $275M in India’s Lenskart Dec 23, 2019

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Lenskart, an omni-channel retailer in India that sells eyewear products, said on Friday that it has raised $275 million in a new financing round from SoftBank Vision Fund as it looks to expand its business in the nation. As part of the new financing round, Series G, some of the nine-year-old startup’s existing investors are selling their stake, said Peyush Bansal, founder and chief executive Lenskart.

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Flickr owner SmugMug emails subscribers with an urgent request: help us find more paying users Dec 23, 2019

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When in April of last year, the photo hosting service SmugMug acquired the photo-hosting service Flickr from Verizon’s digital media subsidiary, SmugMug CEO Don MacAskill said he was committed to breathing new life into the service, calling it “core to the entire fabric of the Internet.” MacAskill didn’t reveal at the time how much SmugMug — which is itself an independent, family-owned operation — paid for Flickr.

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Tesla vehicles are getting Stardew Valley Dec 20, 2019

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Tesla owners have seen a bunch of games added to their car’s in-dash display over the last few months, from a handful of Atari classics to the painfully hard Cuphead. Next up? The oh-so-sweet farm living RPG, Stardew Valley. In addition to just being kind of cool, the in-dash games (playable only when parked, because duh) are meant to help Tesla owners kill time while at superchargers. Stardew Valley is… sort of the perfect game for this.

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Rocket Lab adds new $7.5 million “Mission Success” coin to its online store Dec 20, 2019

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Rocket Lab’s merch store has pretty much what you’d expect from a space-themed gift shop – baby onesies, t-shirts, caps and mission patches. But the commercial rocket launch company just added its latest product, and it’s a bit different from their standard fare: For just $7.

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Facebook is building an operating system so it can ditch Android Dec 19, 2019

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Facebook doesn’t want its hardware like Oculus and Portal to be at the mercy of Google because they rely on its Android operating system. That’s why Facebook has tasked a co-author of Microsoft’s Windows NT named Mark Lucovsky with building the social network an operating system from scratch, according the The Information’s Alex Heath.

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Here’s a Mickey Mouse version of Amazon’s Echo Wall Clock Dec 19, 2019

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Amazon’s original Echo Wall Clock was mostly fine. Some consumers ran into connectivity issues with the device, but it was mostly okay. It’s one of the most passive members of the Echo family of devices, mostly doing its wall clock thing, until you need a time set. The latest addition to the line has something its predecessor lacked, however: a giant Mickey Mouse.

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Need more buttons for your PS4 controller? This gadget adds two on the caboose Dec 18, 2019

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Need more buttons for your PS4 controller? This gadget adds two on the caboose When you play games on your PS4, it’s fair to say that your thumbs and index fingers are generally doing most of the work.

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As the Nasdaq sets new records, a reminder how highly valued tech stocks are today Dec 17, 2019

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Today the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed at an all-time record high of 8,814.23, up 0.91% on the day. The Nasdaq is up more than 32% on the year. Turning the clock back, the Nasdaq Composite is up around 60% from the end of 2016. Compared to the anti-records set in 2009 during the doldrums that followed the 2008 crisis, the Nasdaq is up a staggering 594%. The huge run in value of technology stocks since the last recession is historic.

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