Indian government orders Apple, Google to delist popular game BGMI from app stores

TechCrunch Newsletter [TechCrunch logo]( [The Daily Crunch logo]( By [Haje Jan Kamps]( Thursday, July 28, 2022 Why, hello there, and welcome back to another installment of the Daily Crunch! It’s lovely to have you here with me. Also, [give Freelance Whales a listen](. I discovered the band when I was going to play a different (also excellent) song, [Freelance](, for a friend. Gotta love a lucky coincidence. This is also, incidentally, how I discovered the band Queensrÿche — I was looking for some Freddie Mercury, but ended up with a new heavy metal band to love. What’s your favorite accidental discovery? Oh! And did you know — our Found podcast debuted its new mini-sodes, where they check in with past guests to see how founder life is going. [In the first installment, Maggie Stamets speaks with our very first guest: Iman Abuzeid]( from [Incredible Health](, which helps nurses get connected to better jobs and career growth opportunities. Okay, enough with the asides, we have serious tech bidniss news to share. Let’s goo~oooooo — [Haje]( [ image] Image Credits: Soumyabrata Roy / NurPhoto / Getty Images The TechCrunch Top 3 - Battleground: 0. Indian government: 1: It was unclear why the Indian government had ordered to block Battlegrounds Mobile India, [Manish]( reports, but whatever the reason, [Google yanked the game from the Play Store in India](. - The free-fall descent of Instagram: [Amanda]( takes a closer look at Zuck’s plans for Instagram and discovers that[he wants to double the amount of “recommended content](.” Suffice it to say that neither Amanda nor the author of this newsletter are effusive with enthusiasm. - Dude, where’s my truck: Even as [Amazon starts delivering parcels]( with Rivian-made electric delivery vans, [Kirsten]( reports that electric truck, SUV and van maker [Rivian is starting the process of laying off 6% of its workforce](. [Your Guide to Customer Messaging]( Sponsored by [Twilio]( [Learn how to communicate data-driven, personalized and timely information to your customers on their preferred channels—SMS, email, push notifications, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and more.]( [Download Here]( Startups and VC Fly.io co-founder and CEO Kurt Mackey says that developers don’t really understand the term “edge computing,” [Ron]( reports. Today [the company announced a $25 million Series B]( that it closed in June. Co-founder of Evabot Rabi Gupta argues there’s “a lot of clutter” in the corporate gifting space. He argues that many vendors do little more than send company-branded swag like T-shirts and thermoses, which don’t exactly foster loyalty, [Kyle]( reports. The company announced that [it raised just under $11 million to make corporate gifting less of a mess](. We are now reaching a sort of tipping point where we will see many more commercial applications of natural language processing hit the market. [A gold rush has begun of startups trying to build on this technology](, with an arms race developing between the large language model providers, [Mike]( reports. Go on then, a few more: - Development as a service: Raising[$45 million at a $3.2 billion valuation,]( Retool is aiming to make custom software development as easy as buying premade software, [Ingrid]( reported today. - Boop, you’ve got money: South African startup [Qwili raises $1.2 million to scale]( both its app and its low-cost NFC-enabled smartphone called Qwili Pula. It enables merchants to send and receive payments, reports[Tage](. - It’s a deal! It’s a steal! It’s the sale of the century. In fact, Nick, I think I’ll keep it:[DealCart announced today that it has raised $4.5 million in pre-seed funding]( just three months after their operational launch. [Catherine]( reports that the company is focused on price-conscious Pakistani consumers. - An index fund for houses: [Nada is rolling out a property portfolio]( you can buy shares in, creating a de facto index fund for houses,[Anita]( reports. The company aims to raise $75 million from retail investors by offering funds focused on new cities. - Clickety-clack: [Frederic]( got excited about[Keychron’s first Alice-style mechanical keyboard](, concluding it was worth the wait. [Pitch Deck Teardown: Alto Pharmacy’s $200 million Series E deck]( If your company raises a $200 million Series E, it’s fair to debate whether you can still call it a startup. Still: Convincing investors to part with enough money to produce your own sequel to “The Gray Man” is an impressive feat, which is why we were eager to review the deck that helped Alto Pharmacy close such a large round. (TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead.[You can sign up here](.) [Read More]( [Pitch Deck Teardown: Alto Pharmacy’s $200 million Series E deck image] Image Credits: Alto Pharmacy Big Tech Inc. Instagram announced today that it will start [prompting a random assortment of people on its platform in the United States to participate in an optional survey]( about their race and ethnicity, [Aisha]( reports. The company says the survey will help it to better understand different experiences people may have on Instagram in order to ensure that the platform is fair and inclusive for all users. According to a report, developers on the western side of London, U.K., [may be prevented from working on larger multitenant properties]( due to the state of the electricity grid, and strains caused by nearby data centers, [Paul]( reports. Bad news for people who had hopes that London might hit its growth trajectory of 65,000 new homes per year. Yesterday, Ford reported $40+ billion in revenue, a 50% increase from the same period last year. [The company also reported it was building 14,000 electric vehicles per month](. Wall Street was positively surprised, sending shares up by as much as 6% in after-hours trading, [Rebecca]( reports. Grab a few more, why dontcha: - Google Pixel Bud review:[It’s not hard to imagine the Google Pixel Buds Pro really impressing,]( [Brian]( writes, but he’s disappointed that they seem to be a few years behind the curve. - We’ve Already Come Too Far to End This Now: We are beyond psyched to see what [interactive gaming company Immersive Gamebox]( will do with the plans it has to build a Squid Game experience with Netflix, [Lauren]( reports. - Sing me the money: [Aisha]( reports that Snap launched a creator fund, which will start awarding[independent musicians up to $100,000 per month](. - Skipping a generation:[In China, smartphone sales drop sharply](, reports[Brian](. Virtually all of the major players took a big hit compared to this time last year. Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi and Huawei all saw double-digit drops from Q2 2021. - You get a lick of paint, too:[Gmail rolls out its latest Material You redesign]( and search improvements to all users, [Ivan]( writes. - Meta as well face it, you’re addicted to ads: For the first time in its history,[Meta posts its first quarterly revenue decline](, [Amanda]( reports. - Pass the gapple sauce: Apple has [hired a 20-year veteran of supercar maker Lamborghini]( to work on the tech company’s not-so-secret electric autonomous vehicle program, [Kirsten]( writes. [Read more stories on TechCrunch.com]( Newest Jobs from Crunchboard - [Senior Enterprise Applications Developer (Hybrid Remote/In-Person) 2 Positions at MiraCosta College (Oceanside, CA, USA)]( - [IT Project Manager Senior Specialist at Washington State Department of Natural Resources (Olympia, WA, USA)]( - [Fullstack Engineer at Resemble AI (United States)]( - [Head of Engineering at Arise (United States)]( - [Lead Developer, Collections - Digital at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY, USA)]( [See more jobs on CrunchBoard]( [Post your tech jobs]( and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month. [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Youtube]( [Instagram]( [Flipboard]( [View this email online in your browser]( [Privacy Policy]( | [Terms of Service]( | [Unsubscribe]( © 2022 Yahoo. All rights reserved. 110 5th St, San Francisco, CA 94103