News — TC

China’s plan to introduce its digital currency is getting a lot of help from its tech conglomerates. JD.com, a major Chinese online retailer that competes with Alibaba, said Monday that it has started paying some staff in digital yuan (since January), the virtual version of the country’s physical currency. China has been busy experimenting with digital currency over the past few months. In October, Shenzhen, a southern city known for its progressive economic policies, doled out 10 million yuan worth of digital currency to 500,000 residents, who could then use the money to shop at certain online and offline retailers....

Nearly four years ago, we wrote about a battle between Cloudflare, the San Francisco-based internet security and performance company, and Blackbird Technologies, a firm that quickly amassed dozens of patents, then began using them to file dozens of patent infringement lawsuits against companies, including Cloudflare. The suit was typical in every way, except how Cloudflare responded to it. Unlike many targets of similar lawsuits that opt to settle, Cloudflare fought back, asking very publicly for help in locating prior art that would not only invalidate the broad patent that Blackbird was using to sue Cloudflare, but to invalidate all of Blackbird’s patents....

[Editor’s note: Want to get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that startups can use by email? Subscribe here.]  While consumer tech has matured as a startup category in recent years, many investors continue to be bullish on specific trends like online gaming, voice, and the unbundling of platforms in favor of focused social networks. That’s the key takeaway from a survey that Josh Constine and Arman Tabatabai did this week with 16 of the most active investors in key social product categories over on Extra Crunch. Here’s an excerpt of the responses, from Olivia Moore and Justine Moore of CRV:...

In May 2018, after spending more than 30 years at BET Networks, Debra Lee stepped down as chairman and CEO, following a series of reorganizations within Viacom cable networks. But Lee, who also oversaw the launch of the first network for black women (BET Her) and the related invite-only annual women’s conference Leading Women Defined, has hardly retired from public view. On the contrary, she remains an active and vocal proponent for all women, and women of color particularly, and at the Upfront Summit in Pasadena, Calif., yesterday, Lee used a speaking opportunity to applaud a new IPO diversity initiative...