Techcrunch blog!: Daily Crunch - Zuckerberg ditches his annual challenges

Friday, January 10, 2020 • By Anthony Ha

Happy Friday

Mark Zuckerberg decides to drop his offbeat personal challenges, Lime makes major layoffs and India’s top court rules against the internet shutdown in Kashmir. Here’s your Daily Crunch for January 10, 2020.

Zuckerberg ditches annual challenges, but needs cynics to fix 2030

Mark Zuckerberg won't be spending 2020 focused on wearing ties, learning Mandarin or just fixing Facebook.

"Rather than having year-to-year challenges, I've tried to think about what I hope the world and my life will look in 2030," he wrote on Facebook. As you might have guessed, though, Zuckerberg's vision for an improved planet involves a lot more of Facebook's family of apps, particularly in areas like AR and VR.

Zuckerberg ditches annual challenges, but needs cynics to fix 2030 image

Image Credits: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Bring the 4th LVMH Innovation Award home

Lime is laying off about 100 people and ceasing operations in 12 markets

Lime is hoping to achieve profitability this year by laying off about 14% of its workforce and ceasing operations in 12 markets, as first reported by Axios. CEO Brad Bao told us, “Financial independence is our goal for 2020, and we are confident that Lime will be the first next-generation mobility company to reach profitability.”

India's top court rules indefinite internet shutdown in Kashmir unwarranted and amounts to abuse of power

India cut internet access in Kashmir in August last year after revoking the Muslim majority region's autonomy and statehood. The prolonged shutdown is the longest in any democracy — and today's ruling does not restore it.

Image Credits: Saqib Majeed / SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty Images

Mozilla says a new Firefox security bug is under active attack

Mozilla has warned Firefox users to update their browser to the latest version after security researchers found a vulnerability that hackers were actively exploiting in "targeted attacks" against users. Through this vulnerability, attackers can quietly break into a victim's computer by tricking them into accessing a website running malicious JavaScript code.

Meet MarsCat, a robot cat with lots of love to give and room to grow

MarsCat is a fully autonomous companion that can respond to touch and voice — and even play with toys. Darrell Etherington says it's hard not to love the thing after spending even just a brief amount of time with it.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone backs tutoring platform Scoodle

Launched in late 2018, Scoodle could be thought of as Quora-meets-tutoring. The platforms lets students post questions, which tutors are then invited to answer as a way of boosting their reputation and influence, which in turn could lead to more tutoring work.

Sisense CEO Amir Orad explains why he raised $100M

TechCrunch caught up with Sisense CEO Amir Orad and CMO Harry Glaser to discuss the company's business. Sisense is a member in our newly created $100 million ARR club, having first surpassed the threshold after buying Periscope earlier in 2019. (Extra Crunch membership required.)