Techmeme
February 28, 2019, 7:45 AM

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.
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 …
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.
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Though Seattle repealed its “head tax”, Amazon says it won't use the 722K sq.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.
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.
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 …
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 …
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.
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 …
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.

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More News

Maya Kosoff / OneZero:

Earlier Picks

Eugene Wei / Remains of the Day:
Katyanna Quach / The Register:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Makena Kelly / The Verge: