Techmeme: BlackBerry sues Twitter for allegedly infringing six messaging patents; BlackBerry sued Facebook and Snap in 2018, also alleging messaging patent infringement (Jonathan Stempel/Reuters)

Top News

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

FTC settles with Musical.ly, now TikTok, for $5.7M, over the app's violation of US child privacy laws; TikTok's app updates with a new UX for users 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:

In a letter to the CA government, 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.

More: Business Insider, PYMNTS.com, 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, O'Grady's PowerPage, Firstpost, SiliconANGLE, Mashable, Cult of Mac, iPhone Hacks, SlashGear, Engadget, MacRumors, CNET, iDownloadBlog.com, MAC blog, and Boing Boing

Tweets: @neilcybart, @sfchronicle, @karlhodge, and @chrissyfarr

Connie Loizos / TechCrunch:

Figure, which uses blockchain tech to provide home equity loans, raises $65M; founded over a year ago by ex-SoFi CEO Mike Cagney, Figure has raised $120M total — Figure, a 13-month-old, San Francisco-based company that says it uses blockchain technology to provide home equity loans online …

More: CoinDesk, PR Newswire, Barron's Online, PYMNTS.com, SiliconANGLE, The Block, Cointelegraph, Bloomberg, FinSMEs, and PE Hub Blog. Tweets: @ekp

Thomas Brewster / Forbes:

Equipment from Cellebrite, popular with law enforcement for hacking into iOS/Android devices, is selling for $100-$1,000 on eBay; new units usually cost $6,000 — When eBay merchant Mr. Balaj was looking through a pile of hi-fi junk at an auction in the U.K., he came across an odd-looking device.

More: 9to5Mac, Cult of Mac, SlashGear, Softpedia News, Mashable, and AppleInsider

Tweets: @iblametom and @forbes

The Seattle Times:

Though Seattle repealed its “head tax”, Amazon says it won't use the 722K sq. ft. in Rainier Square tower it had leased, which would have housed up to 5K staff — The lease was one of the biggest in Seattle history — enough space to hold at least 3,500 employees and perhaps up to 5,000.

More: GeekWire, Curbed Seattle, The Real Deal New York, Financial Times, Fox Business, Splinter, KING-TV, Gizmodo, MyNorthwest.com, Fortune, Business Insider, and CNBC

Tweets: @jasonrantz, @cmkshama, @byrosenberg, and @cruickshank

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:

Coinhive, an in-browser Monero miner known for cryptojacking, says it will shut down on March 8, citing the crypto crash and a recent Monero hard fork — Coinhive wanted to be an alternative to classic banner ads but it became malware after constant abuse.

More: Coinhive, The Hacker News, The Merkle Hash, NewsBTC, SiliconANGLE, Security Boulevard, and Cointelegraph

Tweets: @campuscodi, @campuscodi, and @zackwhittaker. Thanks:@campuscodi

Roger Cheng / CNET:

Source: Motorola plans to launch its foldable smartphone, likely a revival of the Razr brand, this summer — Motorola is jumping into foldable phones. And it's likely doing it with one of the most iconic names in the business. — Motorola, a unit of Chinese consumer electronics giant Lenovo …

More: Engadget, New York Times, Inquirer, Phandroid, Android Authority, Gizmochina, MSPoweruser, Pocket-lint, ExtremeTech, Business Insider, XDA Developers, Android Police, Fortune, TechSpot, SlashGear, Droid Life, and The Verge. Tweets: @chrisvelazco. Thanks:@rogerwcheng

Larry Dignan / ZDNet:

RightScale 2019 State of the Cloud survey of enterprises and SMBs: Azure adoption grew from 45% to 52%, reaching 85% of AWS adoption, up from 70% last year — The RightScale 2019 State of the Cloud Report from Flexera highlights how enterprises are spending more on cloud computing …

More: Flexera, BetaNews, Forbes, TechRepublic, CRN, Security Boulevard, InfoWorld, TechRepublic, BetaNews, and diginomica

Tweets: @mdymondyyz, @lawrencehecht, @lawrencehecht, and @lawrencehecht

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:

Dow Jones' watchlist of 2.4M high-risk individuals, including current and former politicians, criminals, and terrorists, was exposed on an unsecured AWS server — A watchlist of risky individuals and corporate entities owned by Dow Jones has been exposed, after a company with access …

More: Security Discovery, SiliconANGLE, Engadget, and CNET. Tweets: @techcrunch

Alex Feerst / OneZero:

Interviews with 15 content moderators from YouTube, Facebook, and other platforms on their day-to-day, how the job has affected them personally, and more — Tech platform trust and safety employees are charged with policing the impossible. They open up to Medium's head of trust and safety.

More: Reuters. Tweets: @tsimonite, @marciahofmann, @ev, and @anildash

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.

More: Square Investor Relations, Bitcoinist.com, PYMNTS.com, ZDNet, Bloomberg, MarketWatch, Investor's Business Daily, and Cointelegraph

Tweets: @selina_y_wang, @jonerlichman, @delrey, @lamonicabuzz, and @dee_bosa

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: Engadget, PYMNTS.com, and TechCrunch. Tweets: @sub8u

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 …

More: The Guardian, Boing Boing, and NBC News

Tweets: @zeyneparsel, @doritmi, @alexismadrigal, @theatlantic, and @triketora

Lauren Feiner / CNBC:

Box misses Q4 expectations with $163.7M revenue, up 20% YoY and compared to $164.2M estimated, and issues weak Q1 guidance; stock drops 24%+ after hours — - Shares of Box fell as much as 23 percent in after hours trading Wednesday after the company reported its Q4 2019 earnings.

More: ZDNet, Box, Inc., and TechCrunch. Tweets: @sallyshin

Larry Dignan / ZDNet:

Fitbit reports Q4 net income of $15.4M on revenue of $571.2M and says it sold 13.9M wearables in 2018, down 9% YoY; stock down 14%+ after hours — James Park, CEO of Fitbit, said “we expect our Fitbit Health Solutions revenue growth to accelerate to approximately $100 million and to grow non-device consumer revenue.”

More: MarketWatch, Fitbit, Inc., and CNBC

Mikey Campbell / AppleInsider:

Strategy Analytics: Apple shipped 22.5M Apple Watch units in 2018, accounting for about half of global smartwatch shipments — Fresh statistics from research firm Strategy Analytics show Apple retained its position as the clear leader in the smartwatch sector, with Apple Watch capturing 51 percent …

More: Business Wire, 9to5Mac, The Verge, MacRumors, iPhone Hacks, Softpedia News, CNET, and Cult of Mac

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

Fortnite dance emote lawsuits set a precedent for media companies to abuse copyright law further and turn shared culture of dance moves into private property — Fortnite is one of the most popular and profitable video games in history, and its publisher Epic is copying creative work …

More: PC Gamer and Gamasutra

Tweets: @reckless and @joshconstine

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.

More: Engadget, MMORPG.com, CNN, shadow.tech, Tom's Guide, IGN, TechNode, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, CNET, and VentureBeat

Tweets: @mikel_triny, @shadow_usa, @shadow_usa, and @im_ebg

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