Image: Samsung
Samsung’s big bet on a foldable future

Good morning! This Friday, Samsung thinks the future is foldable, Amazon drops its "draconian" game-making rules and Facebook's changing its back-to-work policies — again.
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Unless your name is Apple, the world of tech news doesn't pay much attention to the smartphone anymore. New models come and go, sometimes with a better camera and maybe a nicer screen. Yet Samsung is perhaps the only company beyond the iPhone maker capable of still turning heads, and it did just that this week with its summer Unpacked event.
Samsung announced two new flagship foldable phones, the Galaxy Z Flip 3 and the Galaxy Z Fold 3. The former is the first of Samsung's foldables priced under $1,000, with an attractive $999 price tag equal to that of this year's Galaxy S21 Plus.
Samsung is the foldable phone company now. It was the first major smartphone maker to launch a foldable back in 2019, and to a rather disastrous result. But it's stuck with it, and this year appears to have turned a corner on quality, performance and price.
But foldables are still a hard sell. Most people just want a smartphone that works as advertised and has a nice camera; everything else is secondary. Samsung hopes its folding screens, and lower prices, are enough to get consumers excited about the smartphone again.
Still, Samsung has a reputation for pushing the envelope of smartphone design. Time and again it's been ahead of the curve, arriving first to market with a product others, even Apple, end up copying years later. The jury is still out on foldables. Wired's Lauren Goode this week called the foldable phone the modern-day 3D TV, and there's a good chance foldables do end up falling by the wayside.
But Samsung is betting as much on the technology as it is on its dominant position as arguably the only company that can deliver it. In a market as mature as the smartphone, it's a smart wager, and whether the foldable iPhone follows in a few years will be a good indicator of whether Samsung was right.
Singapore is fast becoming a global hotbed of tech innovation. It's easy to see why. Nearly 80 of the world's top 100 tech firms have set up outposts there, including Google, Facebook, Stripe, Salesforce and homegrown unicorns like the super-app Grab.
Amazon scrapped an old policy that gave it rights to video games made by employees after hours, Amazon Game Studios chief Mike Frazzini said:
Bill Gates is hoping for big climate-related wins from the infrastructure bill, and said he'll fund projects in Europe and Asia if it doesn't pass:
Elon Musk says Renesas and Bosch are bringing down electric car production:
Restaurant consultant Tim Powell doesn't think Grubhub's new ordering system will be a good look for vendors:
Nubank is preparing for an IPO later this year, Bloomberg reported. The Brazilian fintech company could potentially seek a valuation of more than $40 billion.
Lee Jae-yong is out of prison. Samsung's leader isn't able to technically return to work for a while, but he already has some big business decisions to make.
Gopuff is acquiring Dija, a British instant grocery delivery service, as the company looks to grow in Europe.
Jennifer Mitchell is the new VP of talent at Updater. She previously worked on recruiting and talent acquisition at Postmates, Facebook and Sentry.
Mark Almon joined Holovach as the director of global compliance and policy. He previously held several positions advising the government on financial crimes.
Dave Hansen is Arcserve's interim CEO. He's been on the board of the data and ransomware protection company, and he'll lead the search for a permanent CEO.
Srinivas Krishnaswamy is the new COO at Plexos. He most recently served as the EVP at AECOM, where he worked for two decades.
Eddy Cue is now the senior vice president of services at Apple,a new title to reflect the team he's been running for the last couple of years.
Slack's new audio chat feature Huddles lets you hit up your colleagues whenever — all you need to do is accept an invitation from a co-worker or start one yourself by clicking the little headphones button in the lower-left corner of Slack.
But don't go calling all your co-workers just yet; there are some general guidelines and etiquette to follow. First, you should always ask before starting a call, especially if you're starting a huddle in a channel that has multiple people. Once a huddle has started, you can hit the microphone button to mute yourself, the screen button to share your screen and the people icon to add people to the chat. You can also enable captions by pressing the three dots and clicking "turn captions on." Huddles can be great for quick chats with other people on the team. But if it turns out you'd rather just type everything out, you can turn the feature off completely — just ask your manager first.
Business leaders say they choose Singapore for its modern tech infrastructure, strong government support, robust pipeline of talent and pro-business regulations (the World Bank ranks it No. 2 in the world for ease of doing business). Plus, its location in the heart of Southeast Asia serves as a launchpad into the bustling Asian-Pacific market.
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