Techmeme: Profile of Tall Poppy, which has raised $1M+ seed round to help companies protect employees against online threats from trolls and hackers (Sean Captain/Fast Company)

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May 18, 2019, 7:05 PM

Top News

Brian Merchant / Gizmodo:

Profile of ObEN, which creates “personal artificial intelligences”, life-size holographic AI avatars, by modeling people's appearance and adapting their voice — In January 2019, when China Central Television, the largest broadcast network in the most populous nation in the world …

Tweets: @nafeezahmed, @mims, @gideonmann, @bcmerchant, and @bcmerchant

Ina Fried / Axios:

Snapchat's popular new gender-changing filter provokes mixed reactions in the LGBTQ community, with some lauding the ability to safely explore themselves — A Snapchat photo filter that lets people see themselves in highly feminized or masculine form has proven wildly popular.

More: The Guardian, Out Magazine, Mashable, Associated Press, KXTV, 93.1 WIBC, ARYNEWS, TheBlaze, TIME, and The Next Web

Tweets: @inafried, @allhailthefireh, @thysz, @rapidnamechange, @jaylathepanda, @goldshift_, and @inafried

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Physical storage startup Clutter, valued at $600M in its last raise, acquired the storage business of rival Omni, which is pivoting to rentals of personal items — On the heels of Clutter announcing a large growth round of $200 million earlier this year, the storage startup is cleaning up the competitive field.

More: Omni

Esha Vaish / Reuters:

Swedish startup Einride's driverless truck T-pod gets a permit to make short trips on a public road in an industrial area in central Sweden at up to 5 km/hr — JONKOPING, Sweden (Reuters) - Resembling the helmet of a Star Wars stormtrooper, a driverless electric truck began daily freight deliveries …

CNBC:

Google has a “Purchases” page that shows your purchases based on receipts you have in your Gmail inbox; Google says only you can view your purchases — KEY POINTS — Google saves years of information on purchases you've made, even outside Google, and pulls this information from Gmail.

Sean Captain / Fast Company:

Profile of Tall Poppy, which has raised $1M+ seed round to help companies protect employees against online threats from trolls and hackers — Anyone who's spent some time on Twitter knows that vilification and personal attacks-as extreme as threats of rape and murder-are a standard feature of some people's online lives.

Tweets: @lizthegrey

Shirin Ghaffary / Vox:

A look at various tools such as drones, sensors, and AI being deployed at the US-Mexico border, as a proposed “smart wall” garners bipartisan political support — Here's what a so-called “smart wall” of technology at the US-Mexico border looks like. — Graphics by Javier Zarracina/Vox

More: Mercury News. Tweets: @ktmboyle, @tlesam, @william_fitz, @theryanford, and @reecejhawaii

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:

IBM report attributes a 95% decline in attacks caused by hacktivist groups since 2015 to the disintegration of Anonymous and sustained law enforcement crackdown — Hacktivist scene collapses as Anonymous hacker collective dies a slow death. — Threat intelligence analysts have long …

More: Security Affairs, Engadget, SecurityWeek, and Security Intelligence

Lizzie O'Shea / Longreads:

All harmful technologies are a product of unethical design, yet, like car companies in the '70s, today's tech companies would rather blame the user — an excerpt adapted from Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Teach Us about Digital Technology |

Tweets: @longreads, @carnage4life, @longreads, @sesmith, @longreads, and @longreads

Eric Feng:

VC-backed consumer startups are outperforming enterprise startups at IPOs in this decade, going public more often at higher valuations, compared to the 2000s — On May 10th, ride hailing juggernaut Uber Technologies went public raising $8.1 billion at an initial valuation just over $75 billion.

Tweets: @efeng, @efeng, and @gavinsbaker

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:

Salesforce says faulty script deployment gave users access to all of their company's Salesforce data, forcing it to shut down much of its infrastructure Friday — Faulty production script gave users access to all their company's Salesforce data. — Salesforce is going through …

More: CRN, The Register, GeekWire, and DataBreaches.net

Tweets: @campuscodi, @parkerharris, @parkerharris, @parkerharris, @gossithedog, and @campuscodi

David Meyer / Fortune:

Italy launches Google antitrust probe, says Google refused to integrate Italian energy giant Enel's app to find electric car charging stations into Android Auto — Google has been hit by yet another antitrust investigation in Europe, but this time it's not about well-worn complaints …

More: The Verge, AGCM, CNBC, The Verge, AGCM, and 9to5Google. Tweets: @elliotsmithcnbc

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The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Trump says Stephen Colbert is a “pathetic trainwreck” and “CBS should, ‘put him to sleep,’ NOW”, after CBS aired a Late Show rerun in which Colbert mocked Trump

Henry Blodget / Regenerator:

Bari Weiss' 60 Minutes decision may have been a way to both signal that she's serious about shifting CBS' sensibility to the right and “improve” a story

Alex Ritman / Variety:

In Channel 4's 2025 Alternative Christmas Message, Jimmy Kimmel said “tyranny is booming” in the US and, on his ABC suspension, “We won, the president lost”

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Selina Wang / Bloomberg:

A look at Twitter in Japan, its second-largest market, raking in $136M in Q1 revenue, where the service has mass appeal and many users have multiple accounts

Tweets: @richbtig, @hamburger, @luca, and @selinawangtv

Earlier Picks

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Alphabet's Wing says it will start drone deliveries in Helsinki, Finland, in the coming weeks with a gourmet supermarket and a restaurant as launch partners

More: Wing Blog, TechCrunch, SlashGear, Engadget, and The Verge. Tweets: @wing

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft announces Minecraft Earth, a real-world AR version of Minecraft, available in closed beta on iOS and Android this summer

Arjun Panchadar / Reuters:

Hewlett Packard Enterprise to buy supercomputer maker Cray in a deal valued at $1.3B, or $35 per share, which represents a premium of 17.4% to Cray's last close

More: Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Xconomy, Neowin, Forbes, CNET, SiliconANGLE, Bloomberg, TechSpot, Engadget, Petri, GeekWire, Silicon Valley Business …, ZDNet, Inquirer, TechCrunch, The Register, Beyond Search, MarketWatch, and Seeking Alpha

Tweets: @profmatsuoka, @mattlfinn, @ron_miller, @djspry, and @antonioneri_hpe

Chloe Taylor / CNBC:

Deliveroo announces that Amazon is leading a $575M funding round for the UK-based food delivery service, bringing the total raised to $1.53B

More: Telegraph, Deliveroo Foodscene, GeekWire, TechCrunch, SiliconANGLE, PaymentsSource, Inquirer, The Verge, Thurrott, PYMNTS.com, Reuters, New York Times, Engadget, VentureBeat, The Guardian, Sky News, The Times & The Sunday Times, BBC, ZDNet, and Telegraph

Tweets: @benwood, @tomwarren, @sohear, @markkleinmansky, and @whatthebit

Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:

AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon say they've stopped selling customer geo-location data to third parties, according to letters they all sent the FCC

More: Ars Technica, The Verge, The Mac Observer, Engadget, Cult of Mac, and 9to5Mac. Tweets: @dellcam