Binance buys $200 mln stake in Forbes; Google releases Android 13 preview; Astra launch fails; Swiggy’s FY21 revenues fall

Binance Holdings, the parent company of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, is making a strategic investment of $200 million into the 105-year-old media company Forbes, Bloomberg reports. Patrick Hillmann, Binance’s chief communications officer, and Bill Chin, head of Binance Labs, its venture capital arm, will join the Forbes board when the transaction closes. “Forbes editorial independence is and will always be sacrosanct. The strength of the Forbes brand and our investment depends on that continued independence,” Binance’s founder, billionaire Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao, said on Twitter.  Google has released Android 13’s first developer preview, Android 13 Preview 1, the company said in a blog post yesterday. The next version of the Android operating system, the most used smartphone software in the world, will continue Google’s ongoing effort to add security and privacy as well as developer productivity features, the company said in the post. In more Android news, OnePlus will release its Nord CE 2 5G smartphone in India on February 17, the company said on Twitter. The OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G is expected to be similar to its predecessor, the Nord CE 5G, according to Android Central. The phone is expected to be equipped with a 6nm MediaTek Dimensity 900 5G chipset, with up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of built-in storage. A launch by Astra, a small rocket company in the US, carrying cubesats built by various universities, failed yesterday a little more than three minutes after takeoff, The Verge reports. “We experienced an issue in today's flight. I'm deeply sorry we were not able to deliver our customer's payloads. I'm with the team looking at data, and we will provide more info as soon as we can,” Chris Kemp, CEO of Nasdaq-listed Astra said on Twitter. Disney+ added 11.8 million new subscribers last quarter to reach 129.8 million subscribers, Disney said in its Q1 2022 earnings release. The company said it’s on track to reach 230-260 million subscribers by 2024. Disney+ has 42.9 million subscribers in the US and Canada and 41.1 million worldwide. It also has 45.9 million subscribers for the Disney+ Hotstar service in India. Swiggy’s consolidated revenue from operations fell 27 percent to Rs 2,547 crore for the financial year ended March 31, 2021, compared with the previous fiscal year, Economic Times reports, citing regulatory filings from the food delivery service company. Swiggy’s net losses also came down by about 59 percent to Rs 1,616 crore, according to ET. Lockdowns, restrictions and multiple emergencies because of the Covid-19 pandemic, hurt sales, the company said in its filings, according to ET. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds