Techmeme
January 23, 2019, 2:05 AM

Top News

Apple:
Apple Pay expands to Target, Taco Bell, and other US chains and now covers 74 of the top 100 US merchants  —  Seventy-Four of the Top 100 US Merchants Now Accept Apple Pay  —  Target, Taco Bell, Hy-Vee supermarkets in the Midwest, Speedway convenience stores and Jack in the Box …
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Twitter begins limited rollout of a new web interface with a two-column layout, keyboard shortcuts, a dedicated emoji button, and a revised trends section  —  Don't be surprised if Twitter looks very different on the web in the near future.  The social network has started rolling …
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Google will retire classic Hangouts for G Suite customers in October, after its previous announcement that Hangouts would be split into Hangouts Chat, Meet apps  —  Google announced in March 2017 that it would split Hangouts, its cross-platform messaging service, into two core apps …
Wall Street Journal:
Analysis of millions of Glassdoor reviews finds 400+ companies, including SpaceX and Slack, have unusual single-month increases in mostly positive posts  —  Employers flood the ranking site with 5-star postings requested from enthusiastic staffers, leading to unusual spikes, a WSJ investigation found
Sean Lyngaas / CyberScoop:
DHS issues rare “emergency” directive ordering federal agencies to secure credentials for DNS records; sources: six agencies have seen malicious DNS activity  —  The Department of Homeland Security has issued a rare “emergency” directive ordering federal civilian agencies to secure …
Anthony D'Alessandro / Deadline:
The Motion Picture Association of America has added Netflix as a member, the first internet-based service to be added  —  UPDATED with Netflix officially joining: It's official, Netflix is a member of the MPAA.  The Washington, DC-based organization just dropped the following release:
Sam Levin / The Guardian:
US DoL files complaint against Oracle for discrimination against women and people of color, seeks $400M+ for workers who have suffered pay inequities  —  US labor department accuses company of rampant exclusion of black and Hispanic people in hiring and higher pay for white men
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google says 30M Chromebooks are used in education, up 5M from May 2018, and that 80M people use its G Suite for Education platform  —  Kicking off tomorrow is BETT, an annual conference and show for education.  Several companies have already announced the latest Chrome OS devices for the market …
Dan Primack / Axios:
Source: Zynga founder Mark Pincus is raising up to $700M for a new investment fund that will focus on publicly traded tech firms needing strategic restructuring  —  Zynga founder Mark Pincus is raising up to $700 million for a new investment fund that will focus on publicly-traded tech companies …
More: TechCrunch
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Google fined €50M by French watchdog CNIL under GDPR for alleged lack of transparency, info, and consent about ads personalization in Android's onboarding flow  —  The CNIL, the French data protection watchdog, has issued its first GDPR fine of $57 million (€50 million).
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft unveils Microsoft Classroom Pen, optimized for the Surface Go and sold in packs of 20 to schools, and 7 new PCs from Acer, Dell, Lenovo from $189-$320  —  Microsoft unveiled a big education push exactly a year ago today, and for 2019, the software maker is equally committed to challenging Chromebooks in a variety of ways.
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Viacom to acquire Pluto TV, a free, ad-supported streaming service, for $340M in cash; Pluto TV to operate as an independent subsidiary when the deal closes  —  Viacom announced Tuesday that it has agreed to buy Pluto TV — one of the fastest-growing free, ad-supported TV streaming services in the U.S. — for $340 million in cash.

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Earlier Picks

Wall Street Journal:
Takashi Mochizuki / Wall Street Journal:
Carolyn Said / San Francisco Chronicle: