NEWSWORTHY
Little boxes on the hillside. Real estate-focused venture capital firm Fifth Wall closed what it's calling the largest real estate venture fund ever, having secured $503 million in commitments to invest in real estate technology, or "proptech," companies. The new fund is more than double the size of the three-year-old venture capital firm's $212 million first fund, raised in 2017.
The mind wanders. Robot software developer CloudMinds filed last week to go public and raise $500 million. The company's apps run robots via the cloud, reducing the amount of processing power needed in each machine.
Green cheese schmear. India launched its Chandrayaan-2 mission to the moon on Monday after postponing the initial launch by about a week due to technical difficulties. The craft's lander and rover are now slated to reach the moon's south pole in early September.
Laying down the gauntlet. Dating app Tinder is testing its own payments system in its Android software that avoids the Google Play store–and paying Google a cut of every charge. But unlike popular game Fortnite, Tinder isn't pulling out of listing in the Google Play store, too. Now it's up to Google to either enforce its mandatory payments rules or, perhaps, see a flood of Tinder followers.
Happy endings. The theft of personal tax data of 5 million Bulgarians has a different ending than most big hacks. Police arrested a 20-year-old man who will be charged with the crime.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The "gig economy" has many shades of meaning. To some, it's the ability for high-paid knowledge workers to go mobile and work remotely. But to others, it's a portion of the low-paid service economy cracking off from traditional employment into contractor status. New York Times reporter Andy Newman recently spent a few days in the less lucrative gig economy in the role of a bicycle food delivery man. It was not exactly a low stress gig:
I was sent to a service entrance where a fellow deliveryman led me down a Dumpster-lined corridor to a crammed holding pen where couriers huddled in near-silence, food packs on their backs.
I had stumbled through a dystopian portal. I thought of what a colleague had said the day before: "You're one step above an Amazon drone." I thought of something Professor van Doorn had said, that the couriers' real value to the app companies is in the data harvested like pollen as we make our rounds, data that will allow them to eventually replace us with machines. One by one, office workers approached a window in the wall to claim their lunches. I handed my customer a spicy salami, sun-dried tomato and Brie sandwich from a restaurant a mile's ride away. "Thank you," she said brightly. "Have a nice day!" She did not tip.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Apple Card: Are the Limited Rewards Worth It for the Privacy? By Xavier Harding
China's Biggest Private Sector Company Is Betting Its Future on Data By Clay Chandler
Investors Seek an Edge By Using Technology That Reads Between the Lines By Tiernan Ray
eBay CEO: Why We Should Teach All Students to Code By Devin Wenig
E-Bike Sales Are Putting a Charge in the Fortunes of Bikemakers By Phil Wahba
How Facebook's $5 Billion Fine Should Be Spent By Jeff John Roberts
Your Smart TV Is Getting Too Smart for Your Own Good By Ashwin Rodrigues
BEFORE YOU GO
The annual San Diego Comic Con fest ran over the weekend and did not disappoint. I was most intrigued by the trailer (and other bits of info) for the new Star Trek series bringing back Patrick Stewart as an older, wiser Captain Jean-Luc Picard, last seen on screen in the 2002 movie Star Trek: Nemesis. But there were lots of other fascinating reveals, including the trailer for the third season of HBO's WestWorld and the announcement that Natalie Portman will play a female version of Thor in an upcoming movie. If you want to dig in even more, The Verge has a summary of all the news from Comic Con. It's quite a listing.
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman. Find past issues, and sign up for other Fortune newsletters.
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