UK's EV chargers mandate; Niantic’s metaverse plan; DuckDuckGo’s app-tracking blocker; plus, Karnataka’s IT minister on ‘Beyond Bengaluru’

Britain has passed a law requiring new houses and buildings to install electric vehicle charging points from next year, BBC reports. This will see up to 145,000 charging points installed across the country each year. New supermarkets, workplaces and buildings undergoing major renovations will also come under the new law. The UK is switching to EVs, with petrol and diesel car sales banned from 2030. Niantic, the maker of the popular augmented reality game Pokémon GO, has raised $300 million from Coatue at a valuation of $9 billion, the company said in a blogpost on Monday. The company that initially spun out of Google, will use the funds to invest in current games and new apps, expand its Lightship developer platform, and build out its version of what it calls the real-world metaverse. “We’re building a future where the real world is overlaid with digital creations, entertainment and information, making it more magical, fun and informative,” said John Hanke, Niantic’s Founder and CEO. Jina.ai, an open-source startup in Berlin, that uses neural search to help its users find information in their unstructured data (including videos and images), has raised $30 million in Series A funding led by Canaan Partners, TechCrunch reports. New investor Mango Capital, as well as existing investors GGV Capital, SAP.iO and Yunqi Partners also participated in this round. DuckDuckGo, the maker of the privacy-focused browser and app of the same name, is beta testing an app-tracking blocker for Android phones, the company said in a blogpost. People can join the private waitlist by downloading the app or updating to the latest version, navigating to app tracking protection in the privacy section under settings, and clicking on the ‘join the private wait list’ option. Once active, the app-tracking blocker will detect when your Android apps are about to send data to third-party tracking companies found in DuckDuckGo's app tracker dataset, and block those requests. El Salvador, which recently became the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender, plans to build a Bitcoin city at the base of a volcano, with the cryptocurrency used to fund the project, its president has announced, BBC reports. The city will be circular to represent the shape of a coin and will be built near the Conchagua volcano to take advantage of its geothermal energy to power Bitcoin mining, according to the report. (03:28) Interview: Ashwathnarayan CN, Karnataka’s minister for science and tech, higher education, information tech, biotech, and skill development The government of the state of Karnataka is making efforts to expand the tech ecosystem concentrated in Bengaluru, beyond the state’s capital city, which has become India’s tech capital. In today’s interview, Ashwathnarayan CN, the state’s minister for science and tech, higher education, information tech, biotech, and skill development, articulates some of the ways the government is making progress on this front.