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 to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS, Google Play and third-party Android app stores in China grew 19% in 2021 to reach $170 billion. Downloads of apps… Source link

(Updates with Azerbaijan’s comments) BAKU, March 26 (Reuters) – Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday Azeri armed forces had entered a zone policed by Russian peacekeepers in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, in a violation of an agreement, but Azerbaijan challenged these claims. Russia said it had called on Azerbaijan to pull out its troops, and was “applying efforts” to move forces to their initial positions. It also said Azerbaijan had carried out four drone strikes in… Source link

No. 1 seed NC State is in its first Elite Eight since 1998, thanks to a defensive stand in the final 20 seconds that turned into its first lead since the second quarter. Raina Perez stole the ball in the backcourt and laid it in with ease to go up by one on No. 5 seed Notre Dame in the Bridgeport region. She sealed the 66-63 win with free throws in the final second after a 3-point attempt by Notre Dame failed to fall. “She turned her back, the ball was still stuck on her hip, so I went for it,… Source link

This article is part of our Yahoo DFS Basketball series. There are only two weeks left in the NBA regular season! It’s been a grind to get to this point, but we’re looking at a sprint for these final 16 days of the regular season. This is the time for some teams to battle for a playoff spot and other clubs to jockey for playoff positioning. That should detour some dreaded rest days, but there’s still plenty of chaos on the injury front and numerous teams playing for draft… Source link

Google (GOOG, GOOGL) recently revealed a pilot program that will allow Spotify (SPOT) users to circumvent Google Play’s billing system. Spotify is among the companies that have publicly fought against Google and Apple’s hold on their respective app stores. Apple takes a 30% commission on app and in-app purchases for larger developers, while Google Play takes either a 30% or 15% commission, depending on a variety of factors. This seems like a small but substantial turning point for… Source link

The possessions of Russian oligarchs — yachts, planes, homes, cars, and cash — subject to “seizure” under White House sanctions, are in a state of legal limbo that requires U.S. people, and not the U.S. government, to temporarily manage them. “The burden, effectively, is sitting with the person who’s holding that blocked property,” Dave Johnson, a sanctions law expert and partner with Vinson & Elkins, told Yahoo Finance. “To set it aside, and then deal with it in a way that’s… Source link

When she co-led Google’s Ethical AI team, Timnit Gebru was a prominent insider voice questioning the tech industry’s approach to artificial intelligence. That was before Google pushed her out of the company more than a year ago. Now Gebru is trying to make change from the outside as the founder of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, or DAIR. Born to Eritrean parents in Ethiopia, Gebru spoke with The Associated Press recently about how poorly Big Tech’s AI… Source link

PHILADELPHIA — The “Fire Hubert” furor peaked as the North Carolina Tar Heels rode through darkness on a chilly bus across their home state. It was Jan. 23, wee hours of the morning. Roads were frozen, but message boards were alight. Hubert Davis, , was “in way over his head.” They said much worse, too, as the Tar Heels and their first-year head coach sat in silence. They’d just lost at Wake Forest by 22, four days after losing at Miami by 28. They were 12-6, 4-3 in the ACC, NCAA… Source link

Staring at his computer screen, Blaine couldn’t help but start sweating. The $50,000 in cryptocurrency he once had in his account was now worthless. Months from getting his law school degree, Blaine, 25, had invested all the money that he had made from trading NFTs over the past year in the hopes of putting it toward starting a life with his fiancé. He had put $50,000 of a stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC), into a liquidity pool of assets for stablecoins USDC and Cashio nine days prior, but when… Source link

The answer Cleveland Browns general manager Andrew Berry gave to the final question asked during Friday’s news conference, the unsettling, unsatisfying news conference the team had after trading for Deshaun Watson and then signing him to a record-breaking $230 million contract, may have provided the most revealing moment of all. Do you, and does this organization, believe there was no wrongdoing? “We feel very confident in Deshaun the person, and we have a lot of faith in him, and we believe… Source link