Techmeme
February 17, 2019, 4:05 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
An account of the rise and untimely death of Vine and HQ Trivia cofounder Colin Kroll, based on interviews with and documents from friends, police, and others  —  Self-taught coder Colin Kroll shot to startup fame, allowing him to live life in a fast lane  —  Colin Kroll, a college dropout …
Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:
Records obtained via FOIA requests and interviews with local officials reveal the unusual lengths Google goes to keep its data center construction plans secret  —  Last May, officials in Midlothian, Tex., a city near Dallas, approved more than $10 million in tax breaks for a huge …
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Elroy Air, a maker of delivery drones that can carry up to 500 lbs, raises $9.2M in seed funding from new and existing investors Catapult, Precursor, and others  —  The dozens of companies vying for a foothold in the $11.2 billion drone industry — and by extension the $400 million same …
Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch:
Vicarious Surgical, which is building minimally invasive surgical tech that combines VR with miniature robots, has closed $10M round led by Gates Frontiers Fund  —  In an operating room in rural Idaho, doctors prep a patient for surgery.  They make a tiny, thumb-sized incision into the patient …
More: FinSMEs and PE Hub Blog
Daniel Oberhaus / Motherboard:
A look at the debate surrounding the economics of popular open source software like OpenSSL, as an ever-increasing workload on maintainers risks causing burnout  —  A look at the complicated business of funding open source software development.  —  It was just before midnight on New Years Eve …

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Featured Podcasts

The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'A Naughty Citizen', With Quinn Nelson
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
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Big Technology Podcast:
2025 In Review, 2026 Predictions — With Reed Albergotti
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
Podcast Pioneer PJ Vogt's Second Act: Less Budget, More Control
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
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Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
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More News

Ryan Mac / BuzzFeed:
Jason Del Rey / Recode:
Abner Li / 9to5Google:

Earlier Picks

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:
Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios:
Matthew Gardner / ITEP:
Stefan Etienne / The Verge:
Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:
Sam Byford / The Verge: