Tips and tricks for all

Ride-sharing and transportation platform Didi Chuxing announced today that it has formed a joint venture with BP, the British gas, oil and energy supermajor. to build electric vehicle charging infrastructure in China. The charging stations will be available to Didi and non-Didi drivers. The news of Didi and BP’s joint venture comes one week after Didi announced that it had received funding totaling $600 million from Toyota Motor Corporation . As part of that deal, Didi and Toyota Motor set up a joint venture with GAC Toyota Motor to provide vehicle-related services to Didi drivers. BP’s first charging site in Guangzhou has already been connected to XAS (Xiaoju Automobile Solutions), which Didi spun out in April 2018 to put all its vehicle-related services into one platform. XAS is part of Didi Chuxing’s evolution from a ride-sharing company to a mobility services platform, with its services available to other car, transportation and logistics companies. In June, Didi also opened

Ryan Browne / CNBC : UK-based fintech startup Revolut launches commission-free US stock trading service, including the ability to buy fractions of shares   —  KEY POINTS  —  Revolut users will be able to buy a fraction of shares in U.S. companies through its trading platform.  —  British fintech firm Revolut … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2LUAixu

Pearson , the London-based educational software maker, said today that thousands of school and university accounts, mostly in the United States, were affected by a data breach. The company added that it has notified affected users already and that the vulnerability has been fixed. The Wall Street Journal reports that the data breach happened in November 2018 and Pearson was notified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in March. The perpetrator is still unknown. According to Pearson, unauthorized access was gained to 13,000 school and university accounts on AIMSweb, the company’s student monitoring and assessment platform. The data exposed included first and last names and, in some cases, date of birth and email addresses. Each account could potentially include information about thousands of students. Pearson added that it has no evidence that any of the exposed information was misused. It will offer free credit monitoring services to affected users as a “precautionary measure.

In May, venture capitalist Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital warned in a Financial Times column that Amazon’s recent $575 million investment in the London-based delivery service Deliveroo could prove ominous for local restaurants. Wrote Moritz: “Amazon is now one step away from becoming a multi-brand restaurant company — and that could mean doomsday for many dining haunts.” Moritz was right to attract more attention to the deal. Deliveroo has begun operating shared kitchens from which it will not simply transport food to customers but eventually prepare it, too . His warning may even have played a role in the recent decision of Britain’s competition regulator to halt work on Amazon’s investment so it can first investigate whether the deal poses competitive concerns. Moritz knows the playbook because of Sequoia’s early investment in Rebel Foods , formerly known as Faasos, a once-small Pune, India-based company that now prepares a variety of foods in its cloud kitchens. As he says

Fintech startup Revolut is launching its stock trading feature today. It’s a Robinhood-like feature that lets you buy and sell shares without any commission. For now, the feature is limited to some Revolut customers with a Metal card. While Robinhood has completely changed the stock trading retail market in the U.S., buying shares hasn’t changed much in Europe. Revolut wants to make it easier to invest on the stock market. After topping up your Revolut account, you can buy and hold shares directly from the Revolut app. For now, the feature is limited to 300 U.S.-listed stocks on NASDAQ and NYSE. The company says that it plans to expand to U.K. and European stocks as well as Exchange Traded Funds. There’s no minimum limit on transactions, which means that you can buy fractional shares for $1 for instance. You can see real-time prices in the Revolut app. When it comes to fees, Revolut doesn’t charge any fee indeed, but with some caveats. The feature is currently limited to Revolut M

Got hardware? Well then, listen up, because our search continues for boundary-pushing, early-stage hardware startups to join us in Shenzhen, China for an epic opportunity; launch your startup on a global stage and compete in Hardware Battlefield at TC Shenzhen  on November 11-12. Apply here to compete in TC Hardware Battlefield 2019 . Why? It’s your chance to demo your product to the top investors and technologists in the world. Hardware Battlefield, cousin to Startup Battlefield , focuses exclusively on innovative hardware because, let’s face it, it’s the backbone of technology. From enterprise solutions to agtech advancements, medical devices to consumer product goods — hardware startups are in the international spotlight. If you make the cut, you’ll compete against 15 of the world’s most innovative hardware makers for bragging rights, plenty of investor love, media exposure and $25,000 in equity-free cash. Just participating in a Battlefield can change the whole trajectory of your

Varun Mishra / Counterpoint Research : Analysis: in Q2 2019, global smartphone shipments declined 1% YoY, making it the 7th consecutive quarter of declining shipments; Samsung shipments grew 7.1% YoY   —  Overall smartphone shipment declined 1% in Q2 2019, making it the seventh consecutive quarter of declining shipments. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2YCqgTf

Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab : After 6 months of fact-checking for Facebook, Full Fact published 96 fact-checks, was paid ~$171k, wants Facebook to share more data with fact-checkers   —  In December 2016, Facebook enlisted a handful of U.S.-based news organizations (ABC News, Snopes, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, and the AP) … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2GETDOS

Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez / The San Francisco Examiner : Lyft has made its 1,000 e-bikes in San Francisco “unavailable to riders” following two reports of bikes catching fire   —  The flames appear to have originated from the battery  —  The battery of an electric Lyft bicycle appeared to catch fire Wednesday in the Lower Haight. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2YtHqGX

Liam Tung / ZDNet : Google to let G Suite admins select users for the Advanced Protection Program, designed to prevent cyberattacks against high-profile users, in the coming days   —  You might never need to change your password again if you're part of the G Suite Advanced Protection Program. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2YAmXfk

Jamf has been widely known as an enterprise Mac deployment and management tool company, but it has been looking for ways to expand beyond those core capabilities. One thing it heard from customers was that there was a dearth of native Mac security tools. It checked that box today, announcing it has acquired Digita Security , a startup with a native Mac security suite. The two companies did not reveal the purchase price. Digita, a two-year old startup, was founded by a team of security experts led by Patrick Wardle, whose background includes a decade as a Mac security researcher, seeking out vulnerabilities on the Mac, and time at the NSA where he honed his security research skills. Wardle says that because of the relatively low Mac marketshare, many traditional security vendors haven’t paid close attention, which can lead to trouble. “Mac marketshare is somewhat limited, maybe around 10%. So the average company is not going to spend a lot of time and resources developing Mac-specifi