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10 things in tech you need to know today (TWTR, GOOG, SNAP, FB)

SoftBank Pepper robot
SoftBank Pepper robot

REUTERS/Issei Kato

Good morning! Here is the tech news you need to know this Monday.

1. SoftBank's Vision Fund is officially the world's biggest private equity fund after it announced on Saturday that it had closed $93 billion (£72 billion). The extra $7 billion (5 billion), bringing the fund's total to $100 billion (£77 billion), is expected to close in the next six months.

2. Tinder's VP of product is leaving the company. Ankur Jain joined the online-dating behemoth a year ago when it purchased his startup.

3. Ev Williams, who cofounded Twitter, more-or-less apologised for the site's role in President Donald Trump's electoral win. "It's a very bad thing, Twitter's role in that," Williams said in an interview with the New York Times. "If it's true that he wouldn't be president if it weren't for Twitter, then yeah, I'm sorry."

4. A £2 billion European investment fund has stopped giving money to UK venture capitalists because of Brexit. Funds including Seedcamp, Hoxton Ventures, and Episode 1 Ventures have been denied funding after the Brexit vote.

5. DeepMind and the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust are yet to specify another legal basis for their first deal. The deal was deemed legally inappropriate by the National Data Guardian in a leaked letter that dates back to February.

6. Swedish prosecutors said on Friday they would drop a preliminary investigation into an allegation of rape against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. It brings an end to an epic seven-year legal stand-off.

7. The CEO of Jeremy Clarkson's social network for cars has left just six months after the website launched. His name is Ernesto Schmitt and the website is called Drive Tribe.

8. Uber has started to charge riders a premium based on where they're traveling. Uber generally determines pricing by taking into account a trip's distance and duration as well as the level of demand in the area in which it originated. Now, though, it's charging extra to certain customers who travel along particular high-demand routes.

9. A study found venture capitalists talk about women entrepreneurs much more negatively than male entrepreneurs. Youth and enthusiasm were seen as positive attributes for men, but a sign of inexperience in women.

10. Instagram and Snapchat were ranked the worst apps for children's mental health. Anxiety, depression, and loneliness were all cited as negative impacts.

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