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Captain’s Log, October 16: Jungle Ventures wins Deal of the Year from investor association

Captain’s Log, October 16: Jungle Ventures wins Deal of the Year from investor association

Also, OnePlus is in hot water and another co-working company launches in Singapore

Jungle Ventures wins VC deal of the year from investment association

The Singaporean VC firm Jungle Ventures was awarded the ‘Deal of the Year’ by the Singapore Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (SVCA) for its investment in the OTT streaming service iflix.

Jungle Ventures was a significant participant in the iflix US$30 million Series A round in 2015. Since then, iflix has raised almost US$300 million — including a US$133 million round from August.

Over the past few years, it has grown into a legitimate regional competitor for Netflix in Southeast Asia.

UK-based co-working space Our Work to launch in Singapore

International co-working spaces continue to launch in Singapore and the city-state can expect another one in January, 2018.

From the UK, Our Work plans to bring a mix of a business-friendly environment and boutique experience to the city. The company pitches its biophilic design as a differentiator from the competition which refers to an architecture style that works to integrate mother nature into the building structure.

Also Read: Marvelstone Group to launch AI hub in Singapore, will incubate 100 startups per year

Singapore will be the first Asian location for the company but the announcement stated they planned to quickly enter Hong Kong. It wants to launch 50 locations in 12 cities over the next five years.

New Circles.Life scheme lets customers get free data before they buy

‘Try before you buy’ schemes have never been the domain of the telcos, who usually preferred to lock their customers into two year contracts. Today, Circles.Life — not technically a telco, but still a service provider — announced a scheme whereby customers can test out 20GB for free before switching to the carrier.

They don’t have to pay any subscription fees an can simply use the data until it runs out — at which point Circles.Life hopes they enjoy the service enough to switch permanently. They can avoid being charged by cancelling at any time before the 20GB is up.

Customers can sign up for the deal from now until the end of 2017.

OnePlus in hot water over data collection scheme, has backed off after push back

The Chinese cellphone maker OnePlus has backed out of an opt-out data collection strategy that resulted in significant outcry from its users. According to TechCrunch, the company automatically collected their phone’s ID number, cell number, wi-fi network, serial number and MAC address.

Owners were not made aware of this opt-out programme and even if they were, the process of turning the data collection off was not simple. For partial turn-off, users could navigate the phone’s advanced settings but to completely turn off the tracking, an owner would need to upload a command line tool (which, frankly, most people would need to research before going down that road).

Also Read: KrazyBee facilitates online loans for students, professionals in India; raises US$8M led by Xiaomi, Shunwei

After their user revolt, OnePlus has adjusted its strategy so now people will be given a choice upon startup about whether or not they want to participate in the programme.

WiFi flaw shows it is vulnerable to eavesdropping

WiFi, the network that is increasingly central to the global economy, has a serious flaw in its security protocol that makes it vulnerable to eavesdropping.

According to Arstechnica, the flaw is called KRACK and it was discovered by the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, which plans to reveal more details tonight at 8pm SGT.

It appears the majority of the access points are unlikely to be patched quickly, and some will never be fixed.

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