Author: sd_admin

A day after Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), Kenya’s monetary authority, said that Chipper Cash and Flutterwave were not licensed to operate in the East African country, the regulator has directed all financial institutions to cease doing business with the two fintechs.

The CBK’s bank supervision deputy director, Matu Mugo, directed all regulated banks, microfinance and mortgage finance institutions to stop their partnerships with the two startups with immediate effect — dealing a blow to Flutterwave and Chipper Cash, some of Africa’s highest valued startups.

The letter to the CEOs followed remarks by CBK’s governor, Patrick Njoroge, that the two startups are not licensed remittance or payment service providers in Kenya — one of the biggest fintech hubs in Africa.

“It has come to the attention of the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) that Flutterwave Payments Technology Limited and Chipper Technologies Kenya (Chipper) have been engaging in money remittance and payments services without licensing and authorization by CBK…You are therefore directed to immediately cease and desist from dealing with Flutterwave and Chipper,” said Mugo in the letter.

Flutterwave, which is also facing money laundering allegations in Kenya, in a statement said it has been operating in the country through partnerships with regulated banks and telecoms, as it waits for a payments service provider license it applied for in 2019.

Flutterwave, which recently raised $250 million at a $3 billion valuation, facilitates cross-border payments transactions of small to large businesses in Africa via one API. Some of its international clients include Booking.com, Flywire and Uber. In a February interview with TechCrunch, the African payments giant, with an infrastructure reach across 34 countries on the continent, said it was processing 200 million transactions worth more than $16 billion.

Chipper Cash is also a cross-border payments company with operations in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda and South Africa.

The U.S. Senate earlier this week approved the CHIPS Act, which includes $52 billion to subsidize domestic semiconductor production. It still has to struggle its way through the bureaucracy (here’s a quick refresher), but clearing the Senate is a huge and important step toward the American chip fabrication industry getting a serious chunk of cash.

Personally, I’m psyched that this may be happening for a few reasons. Yes, yes — supply chain problems and chip shortages have been the bane of everyone’s life for a hot minute, and onshoring some of these fabrication materials, tools and know-how will go a long way toward making the U.S. less reliant on external manufacturing and more resilient in general.

That’s all good and well, but let’s be honest: $52 billion isn’t exactly a sachet of coppers and nickels, but chip manufacturing is expensive. The last planned chip factories I can remember are the $19 billion plant Intel is building in Germany and the $20 billion plant the company is building here in the U.S. If that’s the price tag of a factory, the subsidy builds two and a half plants. That means jobs, but it doesn’t exactly turn the U.S. into a chip-fab juggernaut overnight.

Far more than new factories, I’m most excited about the possibility of history repeating itself. Intel’s choice to build a $20 billion chip fabrication facility in Columbus, Ohio, along with the more recent news of the potential cash injection into the industry, could set the stage for a startup ecosystem boost.

Google has pulled the popular battle royale game Battlegrounds Mobile India, more popularly known as BGMI, from its Play Store in India after a government order, a year after developer Krafton launched the app following a ban on its other similar title PUBG in the South Asian market. The BGMI game has also been delisted from Apple’s App Store in the country.

The Android-maker confirmed the development shortly after publication of the story. “On receipt of the order, following established process, we have notified the affected developer and have blocked access to the app that remained available on the Play Store in India,” a Google spokesperson told TechCrunch.

The app was delisted by Google from the Play Store on Thursday evening, and Krafton itself delisted the app from the Apple App Store shortly afterwards, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told TechCrunch. The iPhone-maker didn’t respond to a request for comment.

A Krafton spokesperson acknowledged the delisting and said the company was seeking clarification. Shares of Krafton tumbled over 9% on Friday, until partial recovery.

The development follows a growing tension between India and China, two nuclear-armed neighboring nations that have been especially at odds since deadly skirmishes along the Himalayan border in 2020. India has since reacted to the move by banning over 300 China-linked apps including PUBG and TikTok, both of which counted India as their largest overseas market by users.

Of the hundreds of apps that New Delhi has banned in the country, Krafton’s PUBG was the only title that made a return — though with a completely revamped avatar.

Krafton said it had cut ties with its publishing partner Tencent, which is also a major investor in the firm, and pledged to invest $100 million in India’s gaming ecosystem. Krafton — which has backed a number of Indian startups including Nodwin Gaming, Loco, Pratilipi and Kuku FM in the past one and a half years — told TechCrunch earlier this week that it estimated that its investment in India will touch about $140 million by next month.

It’s a bold declaration for a startup founder aiming to work with robots — or more accurately, the software that helps turn a tractor, tiller or forklift into an automated vehicle. But Stefan Seltz-Axmacher, who previously founded and led the now shuttered autonomous vehicle startup Starsky Robotics, is trying to make a point.

“They’re really difficult, they break all the time and getting to a stable product is really hard,” Seltz-Axmacher said in a recent interview. “Everyone kind of ends up building nearly everything from scratch, for nearly every application.”

To make matters more complex, robots used in warehouses, mining, agriculture and other industrial environments have hyper-specific applications that are structured and are often repeated thousands of times. In other words, the farmer in Iowa, the yard truck operator in Florida and the e-commerce giant with 100 warehouses spread throughout the country have specific needs that no one else does.

That’s where Seltz-Axmacher, co-founder Ilia Baranov and their new startup Polymath Robotics hope to come in. The pair have developed a plug-and-play software platform and an accompanying SDK that allows companies to quickly and cost efficiently automate industrial vehicles. Think of it as SaaS for industrial robotics.

Polymath Robotics, which came out of stealth Friday and is a Y Combinator Summer 2022 cohort, aims to become the Oracle of the robotics world. The startup is building basic generalizable autonomy designed to automate the 50 million or so industrial vehicles that are operating in closed environments today.

PARIS (AFP, BLOOMBERG) – A new battle for dominance of the lucrative games console market is looming after United States company Valve unveiled a device to rival the hugely popular Nintendo Switch.

Valve, which owns gaming platform Steam, announced Thursday (July 15) that it will start shipping its Steam Deck console in December with prices starting at US$399 (S$542).

The company boasted that the console, marketed as a hand-held PC, will give users “the most gaming power you have ever held” while allowing them to do everything they might otherwise do on a computer.

With its large 7-inch touch screen and high-performing processor, the Steam Deck has drawn instant comparisons with the Nintendo Switch, which has sold more than 80 million units since 2017.

The device has buttons, joysticks, and small mouse pads – the form is almost identical to the Switch.

But it but will have technical capabilities comparable to a gaming PC or console, according to Valve.

While the Switch, which is also a portable device, is low-powered compared with competing gaming consoles, the Steam Deck promises to run the highest-end games.

Footage of the device showed titles such as Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order running on the Steam Deck, which would not be possible on the Switch.

Valve is the studio behind hit games including Half-Life, Counter-Strike and Dota 2.

It was also a pioneer in terms of offering a catalogue of titles online, with its Steam platform the dominant player in the PC games market.

The Steam Deck marks a fresh attempt by the company to enter the console market after the failure of its Steam Machine, released in 2015.

This time, in offering a device that can play all games designed for both Steam and Windows, Valve could present stiff competition to Sony’s PlayStation 5 and Microsoft’s Xbox Series X – at a lower price.

“One of the things we’re testing on this is that price performance can be one of the critical factors in the mobile space and so we’ve had to be very aggressive in terms of pricing on the deck,” Valve chief Gabe Newell told gaming news site IGN.

Video games analyst Laurent Michaud described the Steam Deck as “a very good surprise”.

“Nintendo has its first direct competitor, with a phenomenal catalogue,” he told AFP.

Reader Ron Chua wrote in to ask if there are adverse effects or long-term risks in sleeping next to a Wi-Fi router. He also asked about the risks to pregnant women. Tech reporter Vincent Chang answers.

It is safe to sleep next to a wireless router as it produces radio waves that, unlike X-rays or gamma rays, do not break chemical bonds or cause ionisation in humans.

In other words, radio waves do not damage the DNA of human cells. Damaged DNA can lead to cancer.

While the radio waves from a router operate in the same 2.4-5GHz electromagnetic spectrum as microwaves, the router operates at much lower power levels than microwave ovens.

These waves also deteriorate rapidly, losing their strength as they travel away from the router. Compared to other sources of electromagnetic radiation, wireless routers rank much lower than devices such as mobile phones, especially as handsets are often held against the ear.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), scientists have found “no adverse health effects from low-level, long-term exposure to radio frequency”.

WHO also says that exposure to radio waves at typical environmental levels does not increase the risk of any adverse outcome such as spontaneous abortions, malformations, low birth weight, and congenital diseases for pregnant women.

NEW YORK (NYTIMES, BLOOMBERG) – More than 1,500 workers for video game maker Activision Blizzard walked out from their jobs this week. Thousands signed a letter rebuking their employer. And even as the chief executive officer apologised, current and former employees said they would not stop raising a ruckus.

Ms Shay Stein, who used to work at Activision, said it was “heartbreaking”. Ms Lisa Welch, a former vice president, said she felt “profound disappointment”. Others took to Twitter or waved signs outside one of the company’s offices Wednesday to share their anger.

Elsewhere online, fans sought to organise a boycott of Activision games in solidarity with employees.

“You can support #ActiBlizzWalkout by not playing their titles,” Twitter user Shannon wrote. The post garnered more than 2,300 retweets and over 5,000 likes. In the comments, other users suggested not logging into games or uninstalling them.

Activision, known for its hugely popular Call Of Duty, World Of Warcraft and StarCraft gaming franchises, has been thrown into an uproar over workplace behaviour issues.

The upheaval stems from an explosive lawsuit that California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed on July 20, accusing the US$65 billion (S$88 billion) company of fostering a “frat boy workplace culture” in which men joked about rape and women were routinely harassed and paid less than their male colleagues.

Activision publicly criticised the agency’s two-year investigation and allegations as “irresponsible behaviour from unaccountable state bureaucrats”. But its dismissive tone angered employees, who called out the company for trying to sweep away what they said were heinous problems that had been ignored for too long.

The intense reaction was unusual. Of all the industries that have faced sexism charges in recent years – including Hollywood, restaurants and the media – the male-dominated video game sector has long stood out for its openly toxic behaviour and lack of change.

In 2014, feminist critics of the industry faced death threats in what became known as Gamergate. Executives at gaming companies Riot Games and Ubisoft have also been accused of misconduct.

Now, the actions at Activision may signal a new phase, where a critical mass of the industry’s own workers are indicating they will no longer tolerate such behaviour.

“This could mean some real accountability for companies that aren’t taking care of their workers and are creating inequitable work environments where women and gender minorities are kept at the margins and abused,” said Associate Professor Carly Kocurek at the Illinois Institute of Technology who studies gender in gaming.

She said California’s lawsuit and the fallout at Activision were a “big deal” for an industry that had traditionally shrugged off claims of sexism and harassment. Other gaming companies are most likely watching the situation, she added, and considering whether they need to address their own cultures.

Mr Bobby Kotick, Activision’s CEO, apologised to employees Tuesday, saying that the responses to the lawsuit were “tone deaf” and that a law firm would investigate the company’s policies.

Activision, based in Santa Monica, California, said in a statement for this article that it was committed “to long-lasting change, listening and continuing the important work to create a safe and inclusive workplace that we can all be proud of”.

In interviews, seven current and former Activision employees said egregious behaviour had taken place at the company, up and down the hierarchy, for years. Three current employees declined to be named out of fear of retaliation. Their accounts of what happened at work largely align with what is laid out in the state lawsuit.

Scam cases in Singapore are at an all-time high this year, with 10,402 reported as at August, nearly double the 5,229 for the same period last year.

Scammers can appear convincing, but there are a few signs that can help you figure out if a call, message or e-mail is genuine.

Q: Can I tell if a call is fake before I pick up?

A: Yes. Be on your guard when the call is from an unknown number or is prefixed with a plus (+) sign, as the call is likely coming from overseas.

Watch out in particular for calls that come with a +65 prefix, which looks like Singapore’s country code, but are actually overseas calls. Domestic calls will not display the + prefix.

Q: Can I tell if a call is fake based on what the caller says?

A: Yes. Scammers will often fake attractive deals such as low-interest loans and free gifts to lure you.

Regardless of what they are offering, to get your money, scammers will need to ask you for your personal or financial details such as bank account numbers and passwords at some point, or request payment for services rendered over the phone.

Genuine callers from a government agency or service provider will not ask for these details or payment.

Q: What about calls where I am told I have a problem that needs fixing?

A: This is an increasingly common tactic that scammers are employing to play on unsuspecting users’ anxieties. For example, Singtel said the most common type of scam call encountered by its customers pretended to be from tech support.

Watch out for callers who ask you to download a certain software or app so they can “help” you fix the fake problem. You could be handing them the remote control keys to your device instead. If you suspect you are the target of a scam call, hang up immediately.