Techmeme
April 18, 2019, 10:05 PM

Top News

Jem Aswad / Variety:
Amazon Music launches an ad-supported tier for Alexa-enabled devices in the US, allowing users to listen to Amazon Music's top playlists and stations for free  —  Amazon Music today basically soft-launched its free streaming tier, in which U.S. customers of its Alexa voice assistant …
YouTube Blog:
Google Home and Assistant-powered speakers get a free ad-supported version of YouTube Music with limited functionality, in 16 countries including the US and UK  —  Listening to music on your Google Home speaker right out-of-the-box seems too good to be true, right?  It's not!
Kurt Wagner / Recode:
Facebook updates a March blog post to say it stored passwords of millions of Instagram users in plain text, not tens of thousands as first announced  —  This number is much, much bigger than Facebook originally shared.  —  On the same morning Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report …
Rob Price / Business Insider:
Bla1ze / CrackBerry.com:
Emtek announces it will shut down BBM for consumers on May 31, but BlackBerry's enterprise-grade service, BBM Enterprise, will become available to individuals  —  Consumer BBM users encouraged to switch to BBM Enterprise  —  Back in 2016, BlackBerry announced a new partnership …
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Zoom closes up 72% on its first day of public trading, valuing the company at $15.9B after it raised $356.8M in its IPO  —  Videoconferencing software company Zoom made its debut Thursday on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “ZM,” surging 80% to $65 and closing out the day up 72% at $62.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Microsoft acquires Express Logic, which claims its real-time operating system for IoT and edge devices called ThreadX RTOS has over 6.2B deployments worldwide  —  Microsoft today announced that it's acquired Express Logic, a 23-year-old San Diego, California-based developer of real-time operating systems …
Ian Sherr / CNET:
A look at Apple's Material Recovery Lab, which houses Daisy, a robot that can disassemble 15 different iPhone models at a rate of 200/hour for parts recycling  —  Hidden not far from downtown Austin, Texas, a research lab is working to change the way we recycle electronics.  And it's being run by Apple .
More: VentureBeatThanks:@jeskillings
Apple:
Nathan Ingraham / Engadget:
Google and Amazon end their streaming video spat: YouTube will come to Fire TV and Prime Video will work with Chromecast and Android TV  —  Google and Amazon haven't historically been the best of friends, at least when it comes to their respective streaming video services.
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Kuo: 2019 iPhones will feature a 12MP front camera; the 6.5" and 5.8" OLED iPhones will have a rear-facing triple-camera system with a new super-wide 12MP lens  —  Kuo today said that Apple plans to upgrade the front camera in the 2019 iPhones from 7-megapixels to 12-megapixels.
Paulina Duran / Reuters:
Life360, an SF-based startup that makes a family tracking app, announces IPO in Australia, plans to raise A$145M, valuing the company at ~A$689M  —  SYDNEY (Reuters) - U.S. family tracking app operator Life360 has launched a A$145 million ($104 million) initial public offering in Australia …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Several journalists have reported their Samsung Galaxy Fold review unit's screen breaking after a day or two of use  —  Yikes  —  Look closely at the picture above, and you can see a small bulge right on the crease of my Galaxy Fold review unit.  It's just enough to slightly distort the screen, and I can feel it under my finger.
The Verge:
Sam Rutherford / Gizmodo:
T-Mobile's no-fee mobile-first checking account, T-Mobile Money, rolls out nationwide, offers T-Mobile customers 4% interest rate on the first $3,000 deposited  —  While it's not quite a pivot, it seems more and more tech companies are straying out of their lane and into the finance world.

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