Hey I’m Domm, it’s Thursday 19th July 2018, and this is your daily precap of the latest and greatest technology, startups, and business news.

 

Google has copped a $5Bn fine in Europe over its Android mobile operating system.  The European Commission has concluded that Google has abused its Android market dominance in three key areas:

 

Google has been bundling its search engine and Chrome apps into the operating system.

 

Google has also blocked phone makers from creating devices that run forked versions of Android,

 

and it “made payments to certain large manufacturers and mobile network operators” to exclusively bundle the Google search app on handsets.

 

Google CEO Sundar Pichai says Android has created more choice, not less, and that Google will appeal the EU ruling.

 

Finally, Samsung has listened, and next year they are releasing a 7” phone that can do the one thing we have all been asking for, bend in half and be folded like a wallet.

 

Seriously, to all phone manufacturers out there, just concentrate on the important things, like not catching fire, long battery life, take really fucking good photos, give us the fastest possible data connections and don’t sell our data.  The rest is fluff.

 

But, luckily, a Silicon Valley company called Light, has just raised $121M, and the company produces cameras with 16 lenses.  They are going to be using the money to take their tech to autonomous cars, and smartphones with as many as 9 camera. Now that would be a bloody good photo.

 

Roblox an MMO (Massively multiplayer online) game, said that malicious code was uploaded to one of its servers in a hack, which results in the virtual gang rape of a 7-year-olds virtual character.

 

This is just one of those atrocious stories that shouldn’t have been technically possible, and then given it was, shouldn't have been what some sick malicious hackers intent was.

 

We have another great booming Kiwi company, Re-Leased.  The company just raised $2.1M, but that’s not the good bit.  The good bit is that this is a company with real traction and is looking to customers as their primary source of income.  The run a commercial property management platform, and they are already managing $250M of rent a month through the platform.

 

Airbike, a Sydney based bike sharing startup has ignored the mortality of other bike sharing startups in Australia and has launched in Canberra.  I dont want to sound like a broken record, but PLEASE we dont want your bikes, we want electric scooters, stat!

 

If you are a founder or co-founder, then drop me a line, tell me what you are working on, I would love to know!

 

Do NOT miss out on the best news, reviews and tip-offs about the most exciting happenings in tech, startups or product releases, make sure you are following me on instagram @domm, AND subscribe to the daily precap podcast, on your favorite podcast app.

 

That was your daily precap, I am Domm, thanks for listening.