The Federal Trade Commission announced on Tuesday evening that it has brought its first case against using fake reviews to sell products online. The Commission said it will settle with defendant Cure Encapsulations Inc., a New York City-based company, and owner Naftula Jacobwitz, who it accused of making false claims about a weight loss supplement…
For more than 15 years, Steam has been the dominant digital distribution platform for PC video games. While its success has spawned several competitors, including some online stores from game publishers, none have made a significant dent in its vice-like grip on the market. Cracks, though, are seemingly starting to appear in Steam’s armor, and…
The field of technology and the business practices within it tend to advance faster than regulators can keep up. But the FTC is making a concerted effort with a new 17-lawyer tech task force dedicated to ensuring “free and fair competition” and watching for anticompetitive conduct among technology companies. This isn’t necessarily a precursor to…
Continuing its quest to become the Amazon Web Services for biomanufacturing, href=”http://ginkgobioworks.com/”>Ginkgo Bioworks has launched a new spinoff called Motif Ingredients with $90 million in funding to develop proteins that can serve as meat and dairy replacements. It’s the second spinout for Ginkgo since late 2017 when the company partnered with Bayer to launch Joyn…
Pinduoduo, the latest challenger to China’s ecommerce dominators Alibaba and JD.com, wants to bring affordable, imported items to shoppers in China’s smaller cities and rural areas. The three-year-old Tencent-backed ecommerce upstart is recruiting importers to set up shop on its marketplace, shows a message on its website. The business is known for offering cheap, sometimes…
Whether protected through copyright, trade secret, trademark, or patents, software technology companies depend on IP more so than perhaps any other business type in history. It is surprising, then, just how little founders think about protecting their own IP. Sure, “product-market fit” is an all-engrossing search for truth that tolerates no distraction, but that is…
On Tuesday, Coinbase announced that XRP will be the latest cryptocurrency to hit its pro-level trading platform. Coinbase Pro will allow users to transfer XRP to the platform right away (“After 10am on February 25”) but there will be at least a 12 hour delay before trading is enabled. As one of the most controversial…
Like every year, Facebook is using MWC Barcelona to focus on its infrastructure projects. While you may mostly think of Facebook as a social network, the company started launching infrastructure projects for connecting bringing more people online (and onto its network) many years ago. These projects include things like the (now-cancelled) solar-powered Aquila drone and…
It’s Oscar night! Do you care? If you’re me, and/or the statistically average watcher, the answer is: a whole lot less than you used to. Last year’s viewership hit an all-time low. Whither Hollywood, which just does not dominate the cultural conversation the way it used to? Oh, at first glance it’s doing just fine…
Microsoft unveiled the latest version of its HoloLens ‘mixed reality’ headset at MWC Barcelona today. The new HoloLens 2 features a significantly larger field of view, higher resolution and a device that’s more comfortable to wear. Indeed, Microsoft says the device is three times as comfortable to wear (though it’s unclear how Microsoft measured this).…
