Techmeme: Ionic Security, which helps companies secure sensitive data stored on enterprise clouds and devices, raises $40M Series E, bringing total raised to $162.4M (Kyle Wiggers/VentureBeat)

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Though Seattle repealed its “head tax”, Amazon says it won't use the 722K sq.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

Sponsor Posts

Zoho:

UK tax compliance with Zoho Books — The evolving tax landscape in the UK has added an additional responsibility to business owners, accountants, and bookkeepers to ensure their choice of accounting software supports compliance …

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.

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