bahrain
This Week in Apps: Twitter Notes, Instagram age verification, Spotify’s Live Events
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues…
Disney+ rolls out to 16 more markets across the Middle East and North Africa
This week, the Walt Disney Company continues to gain ground in the global streaming market as it launches Disney+ in 16 markets across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).…
Egyptian health and wellness platform Esaal raises $1.7M to scale across MENA
There’s a vast unmet demand for medical consultation in developing markets like Egypt due to low doctor supply. As of 2018, Egypt’s doctor to citizen ratio stood at 1:2,000; you…
Apple files lawsuit against NSO Group over Pegasus spyware
Apple has launched a lawsuit against NSO Group, the maker of the nation-state spyware Pegasus, seeking a permanent injunction to prevent the spyware maker from using any Apple product or…
Tier scoots off with $200M, all-equity ‘first close’ of Series D
Berlin-based e-scooter rentals company Tier Mobility has announced a $200 million raise, which it says is the “first close” of its Series D, as investors continue to plough money into…
US government bans sale of hacking tools to China and Russia
The U.S. Department of Commerce has announced that it will ban the export of hacking tools to authoritarian governments in an effort to curb violations of human rights and other…
Featured Article
A new NSO zero-click attack evades Apple’s iPhone security protections, says Citizen Lab
A Bahraini human rights activist’s iPhone was silently hacked earlier this year by a powerful spyware sold to nation-states, defeating new security protections that Apple designed to withstand covert compromises, say researchers at Citizen Lab. The activist, who remains in Bahrain and asked not to be named, is a member of the Bahrain Center for…
Featured Article
A new ‘digital violence’ platform maps dozens of victims of NSO Group’s spyware
For the first time, researchers have mapped all the known targets, including journalists, activists, and human rights defenders, whose phones were hacked by Pegasus, a spyware developed by NSO Group. Forensic Architecture, an academic unit at Goldsmiths, University of London that investigates human rights abuses, scoured dozens of reports from human rights groups, carried out…
A newly released draft intelligence bill, passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee last week, would require the government to detail the threats posed by commercial spyware and surveillance technology. The…
Formula 1 replaces its postponed races with a virtual grand prix series
Formula 1 had to postpone and cancel several races on its calendar due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. With races in Australia, Bahrain, Monaco, Vietnam and China already called off,…
Voter manipulation on social media now a global problem, report finds
New research by the Oxford Internet Institute has found that social media manipulation is getting worse, with rising numbers of governments and political parties making cynical use of social media…
China’s Vivo is eyeing smartphone users in Africa and the Middle East
Africa’s mobile phone industry has in recent times been dominated by Transsion, a Shenzhen-based company that is little known outside the African continent and is gearing up for an initial…
Microsoft’s first data center regions in the Middle East are now generally available
Microsoft today announced that its first data center regions in the Middle East are now online. The data centers are located in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and will offer local…
An untapped market in the Middle East is the solution to crypto’s slowdown.
Featured Article
Facebook is not equipped to stop the spread of authoritarianism
Facebook isn’t responsible for government decisions to clamp down on free expression. But the question remains: How can companies stop assisting authoritarian governments, inadvertently or otherwise?
Saudi ally calls for Uber boycott over response to Khashoggi’s vanishing
Uber is facing calls for a boycott of its app in the Persian Gulf, a region that has poured billions of dollars of investment into the company’s ride-hailing business in…
Singapore sovereign fund Temasek takes stake in tech events firm Unbound
Media exits happen, but typically you don’t hear of tech events companies being sold. Well, that’s the case in Singapore where SingEx — a subsidiary of the country’s Temasek sovereign wealth…
There is hardly a day that passes without a new major initiative, announcement or bold proclamation by the Gulf economies of United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi…
