Techmeme
February 27, 2019, 6:55 PM

Top News

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
FTC settles with TikTok's Musical.ly for $5.7M over the app's violation of US child privacy laws; TikTok's app updates today with a new UX for those under 13  —  A significant FTC ruling issued today will see video app TikTok fined $5.7 million for violating U.S. children's privacy laws …
Roland Li / San Francisco Chronicle:
Filing: Apple confirms that 190 employees, including 124 engineers, will be laid off from its self-driving car division on April 16  —  Apple will lay off 190 employees in Santa Clara and Sunnyvale in its self-driving car division, the company said.  —  The layoffs were disclosed …
Alexis C. Madrigal / The Atlantic:
Crowdtangle data: a small number of Facebook Pages created 46% of the top 10,000 posts for or against vaccines, with 20% generated by seven anti-vax Pages  —  Squelching vaccine misinformation might be easier than the platform makes it seem.  —  Look up vaccinations on Facebook …
Kate Rooney / CNBC:
Square reports Q4 adjusted revenue of $464M, up 64% YoY, 15M Cash App MAUs in Dec. 2018, up from 7M YoY, issues weak Q1 guidance; stock down 6%+ after hours  —  - Payment company Square reported fourth-quarter results that beat analysts' expectations for earnings and revenue on Wednesday.
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Review of Shadow Ghost, a $140 streaming game console made by French startup Blade, which runs a $35/month cloud gaming service that now has ~65,000 subscribers  —  French startup Blade, the company behind Shadow, is launching a new set-top box to access its cloud gaming service — the Shadow Ghost.
Eugene Wei / Remains of the Day:
An in-depth analysis of social media platforms through the lens of social capital theory and why we should think of them as “Status as a Service” businesses  —  Editor's Note 1: I have no editor.  —  Editor's Note 2: I would like to assure new subscribers to this blog that most my posts are not as long as this one.
The Keyword:
Google and DeepMind are using AI to predict the power output of wind farms 36 hours ahead of actual generation, boosting economic value of wind energy by ~20%  —  Carbon-free technologies like renewable energy help combat climate change, but many of them have not reached their full potential.
Ian Allison / CoinDesk:
Nivaura, which aims to use blockchains to automate the lifecycle for the issuance of financial instruments, raises $20M led by the London Stock Exchange  —  Capital markets blockchain startup Nivaura has raised a total of $20 million with the closing of its second seed extension round led by the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG).
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
BlackBerry sues Twitter for allegedly infringing six messaging patents; BlackBerry sued Facebook and Snap in 2018, also alleging messaging patent infringement  —  (Reuters) - BlackBerry Ltd on Wednesday filed a patent infringement lawsuit accusing Twitter Inc of illegally using technology …
More: TechCrunch
Connie Loizos / TechCrunch:
Sendoso, which sends customized gifts to current and prospective clients at scale for a monthly fee, raises $10.7M Series A led by David Sacks' Craft Ventures  —  In today's noisy, fast-paced world, finding a way to let clients and potential customers know that they are top of mind can be a major challenge for companies.

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Zoho:
Zoho Books Launches CT600 & Final Accounts Filing for Micro-Entities in the UK  —  Tax compliance is the fulcrum of accounting and Zoho Books has come a long way in helping different business structures in the UK stay compliant with their tax obligations.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Access:
Home robots are coming faster than you think, with Sunday's Tony Zhao
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
An Intro to Data Centers
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
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Big Technology Podcast:
Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis: AI's Next Breakthroughs, AGI Timeline, Google's AI Glasses Bet
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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Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Vinod Khosla and Keith Rabois from Khosla Ventures
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
Chuck Klosterman on Why Football Owns TV (and Why It Won't Forever)
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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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Special Edition: Key findings from the Microsoft AI Diffusion Report
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.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

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More News

Manish Singh / VentureBeat:
Katyanna Quach / The Register:
Federal Trade Commission:
Gus Garcia-Roberts / USA Today:

Earlier Picks

Tom Krazit / GeekWire:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Hadas Gold / CNN:
Shannon Liao / The Verge:
The Guardian: