Techmeme
April 11, 2017, 1:00 AM

Top News

Chris Welch / The Verge:
LeEco calls off its $2B purchase of TV maker Vizio, instead forming “partnership” that brings Le app to some Vizio devices and Vizio products to China  —  LeEco is no longer buying Vizio.  Today the companies jointly announced that “the merger agreement to acquire Vizio will not proceed due to regulatory headwinds.”
Selina Wang / Bloomberg:
Source: LeEco missed its $100M US sales goal in 2016, generating less than $15M, will eliminate 175 of 475 jobs in US  —  Chinese tech firm falls far short of $100 million revenue goal  —  U.S. ambitions also hindered by collapse of deal to buy Vizio  —  Chinese technology conglomerate LeEco Inc …
More: Tech Times, Tech.pinions, and CNETTweets: @stevekovach
Bloomberg:
Sources: Comcast plans to debut an online video service offering hit shows from its NBCUniversal TV networks in the next 12 to 18 months  —  Service said to include NBC programs, perhaps SyFy, Bravo, USA  —  Regulatory restrictions hamstring cable giant until next year
David Ingram / Reuters:
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says company has 5M monthly advertisers, up from 3M in March 2016  —  Facebook Inc (FB.O) plans to announce on Monday that more than 5 million businesses are advertising on the social network each month and that it is updating its suite of ad services to try …
Nate Lanxon / Bloomberg:
Minecraft is adding a new marketplace with its own currency this spring, where creators can monetize their original content  —  Microsoft Corp. is adding a new marketplace — and a brand new currency — within the video-game Minecraft, opening up the opportunity for businesses to sell …
Bart Jansen / USA Today:
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai seeks to keep voice-call ban on planes, taking off the table a 2013 proposal to reverse it  —  WASHINGTON - Cell-phone calls will continue to be banned during airline flights, under an order the head of the Federal Communications Commission proposed Monday to stop considering whether to lift the ban.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Symantec links alleged Vault7 CIA malware to hacking operation that attacked at least 40 targets in 16 countries across the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Africa  —  WikiLeaks dump identical to operation that has been hacking governments since 2011.  —  Malware that WikiLeaks purports belongs …
Aaron Pressman / Fortune:
AT&T to acquire wireless carrier Straight Path in $1.6B deal for its spectrum, ahead of 5G push, paying almost 3x Straight Path's stock price  —  AT&T just settled the Wall Street debate over the value of high bandwidth airwave rights suitable for super-fast next generation wireless networks.
Andrew E. Kramer / New York Times:
At FBI's request, Spain arrests a visiting Russian, Peter Levashov, who infosec experts say is an e-mail spam kingpin known as Peter Severa  —  MOSCOW — He refused to meet business associates in person and never talked on the phone, preferring instead to communicate via encrypted messaging services.
Business Insider:
Sources: Magic Leap last spring quietly acquired game studio FuzzyCube Software, which had fewer than ten employees  —  Magic Leap is beefing up its ranks with artists and animators from an Oscar-winning studio and veteran game designer, in a sign that the $4.5 billion company believes content …
More: SlashGear

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Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
The Economic Times: