Techmeme: Though Seattle repealed its “head tax”, Amazon says it won't use the 722K sq.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

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, AppleInsider, SiliconANGLE, SlashGear, MacRumors, iPhone Hacks, Cult of Mac, 9to5Mac, Engadget, CNET, iDownloadBlog.com, MAC blog, and Boing Boing

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

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Though Seattle repealed its “head tax”, Amazon says it won't use the 722K sq.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, Gizmodo, KING-TV, Financial Times, The Real Deal New York, Curbed Seattle, Splinter, MyNorthwest.com, Fox Business, Business Insider, CNBC, and Fortune

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

Larry Dignan / ZDNet:

RightScale 2019 State of the Cloud report: 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, but are getting concerned about optimizing their spending.

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

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

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: PR Newswire, American Banker, Barron's Online, SiliconANGLE, FinSMEs, Cointelegraph, and PE Hub Blog. Tweets: @ekp

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, 9to5Google, Fast Company, ExtremeTech, XDA Developers, SlashGear, Business Insider, Droid Life, The Verge, Pocket-lint, Android Authority, TechSpot, Android Police, and Fortune. Tweets: @chrisvelazco. Thanks:@rogerwcheng

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, SiliconANGLE, BleepingComputer, Security Boulevard, Cointelegraph, and The Block

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

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: NBC News and Boing Boing

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

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

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

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

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, Bloomberg, ZDNet, Investor's Business Daily, and MarketWatch

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

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: CNBC, Fitbit, Inc., and MarketWatch

Isobel Asher Hamilton / Business Insider:

Sensor Tower: TikTok passed 1B downloads on Android and iOS, excluding Android installs in China; 663M downloads came in 2018, beating Instagram's 444M — - Chinese short-form video app TikTok has been downloaded 1 billion times across Android and iOS, according to Sensor Tower figures.

More: Sensor Tower Blog, CNET, TechNode, Mashable, USA Today, and Adweek. Tweets: @owenc

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

Mariella Moon / Engadget:

Samsung begins mass production of 512GB embedded Universal Flash Storage (eUFS) 3.0 chips for smartphones, with speeds of up to 2,100 MB/s — Samsung's future phones, including the Galaxy Fold, will have read and write speeds comparable with snappy ultra-fast laptops.

More: Samsung Global Newsroom, Android Police, CNET, BGR, 9to5Google, Gizchina, Android Authority, Neowin, and SlashGear

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: AppleInsider and Mashable

Tweets: @iblametom and @forbes

James Vincent / The Verge:

FedEx unveils SameDay Bot, an autonomous robot that can travel at 10 mph, plans to use it for deliveries starting with trials in Memphis later this year — Trials of the robot, which has a top speed of 10 mph, will begin later this year — Startups do it. Amazon does it.

More: Engadget, SiliconANGLE, CNBC, Neowin, Digital Trends, ZDNet, Socialnomics, Fortune, Mashable, and IGN

Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:

Study of VC-backed deals over the last five years finds that 77.1% of VC-backed founders were white, 1% were black, and 9.2% of startup founders were female — Maybe the VC community is tired of hearing about it; certainly, there are plenty of people who are tired of dealing with it.

More: RateMyInvestor and DiversityVC

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Ionic Security, which helps companies secure sensitive data stored on enterprise clouds and devices, raises $40M Series E, bringing total raised to $162.4M — Atlanta, Georgia-based Ionic Security (formerly Social Fortress) has raised $40 million in series E financing led by JPMorgan Chase …

More: FinSMEs, Atlanta Business Journal, PR Newswire, and Hypepotamus

The Verge:

After Project Veritas posts internal Facebook documents, Facebook says it fired a contractor a year ago who worked with the right-wing sting group on a “stunt” — Project Veritas published Facebook moderation conversations — Facebook says it fired a contractor who worked …

More: YouTube. Tweets: @russellbrandom and @mikeisaac

Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:

Russian court hands former Russian cybersecurity chief and a Kaspersky Lab executive lengthy prison sentences after being convicted on treason charges — A Russian court has handed down lengthy prison terms for two men convicted on treason charges for allegedly sharing information …

More: NBC News, WinBuzzer, New York Times, The Daily Beast, and Dark Reading

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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