Techmeme: Amazon to buy Sizmek's Ad Server and Dynamic Creative Optimization units after the adtech company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March (Megan Graham/CNBC)

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May 31, 2019, 6:15 PM

Top News

Christine Fisher / Engadget:

Report: Apple to limit third-party tracking in apps for kids starting next week — As tech companies grapple with safety and privacy concerns, Apple will reportedly limit third-party tracking in kids apps starting next week. While the company hasn't announced the change, a source told The Wall Street Journal that it's in the works.

Source: Wall Street Journal. More: The Verge, MacRumors, AppleInsider, Gizmodo, GeekWire, The Verge, 9to5Mac, CNET, Boing Boing, Seeking Alpha, iPhone in Canada Blog, The Mac Observer, Engadget, and Silicon Valley Business …

Tweets: @joannastern, @imatias, @bethanymac12, @reckless, @joannastern, @joannastern, @ihnatko, @wsj, @dangillmor, @gigabarb, @ismurray, @profcarroll, @trippmickle, and @pierce

See also Mediagazer

Mehedi Hassan / Thurrott:

Report: Spotify is working on a new “Social Listening” feature that allows users to listen along with their friends and add songs to a shared queue — Spotify is taking its Spotify Connect features to the next level with social integration. The company is working …

More: TechCrunch, XDA Developers, Android Police, Neowin, The Verge, Engadget, RAIN News, SlashGear, Mashable, MSPoweruser, iPhone in Canada Blog, hypebot, and Digital Information World

Tweets: @wongmjane, @wongmjane, @rachelnabors, @joshconstine, @joshconstine, @prsarahevans, @iankar_, and @mehedih_

Julie Verhage / Bloomberg:

Coinbase COO Asiff Hirji is leaving the company, to be replaced by VP of business Emilie Choi; a number of execs, including the CTO, have left Coinbase recently — - Former TD Ameritrade executive Asiff Hirji joined in 2017 — Emilie Choi named as Hirji's successor at San Franscico firm

More: The Block, CoinDesk, and Ethereum World News

Tweets: @readdanwrite, @teddyschleifer, and @urbanarson

Timothy B. Lee / Ars Technica:

A deep dive into the 233-page antitrust ruling against Qualcomm, which said the company's aggressive licensing tactics had strangled competition for modem chips — We did a deep-dive into the 233-page ruling declaring Qualcomm a monopolist. — In 2005, Apple contacted Qualcomm …

More: Reuters and 9to5Mac. Tweets: @aatifsumar. Thanks:@cremnob

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Foursquare buys location analytics service Placed from Snap, raises $150M led by Raine Group; Placed reportedly raised $13.4M before Snap acquired it in 2017 — Foursquare just made its first acquisition. The location tech company has acquired Placed from Snap Inc on the heels …

More: enterprise.foursquare.com, Marketing Land, Wall Street Journal, Wired, PYMNTS.com, GeekWire, and socalTECH.com

Tweets: @cphenner, @fromedome, @foursquare, @thekenyeung, @asanwal, @jonty, and @dens

Noah Kirsch / Forbes:

Tempus, a clinical data collection and analytics platform launched in 2015 by Groupon co-founder Eric Lefkofsky, raises $200M Series F at a valuation of $3.1B — Tempus, a health technology startup based in Chicago, raised $200 million in new funding at a $3.1 billion valuation, the company announced on Thursday.

More: TechCrunch, Business Insider, smartbusinessdealmakers.com, Built In Chicago, GenomeWeb, and Chicago Tribune

Carolyn Said / San Francisco Chronicle:

Kiwibots, the “parallel autonomy” food delivery bots popular with students at UC Berkeley, are remotely piloted by workers in Colombia who are paid $2/hour — Karis Tang, age 2½, squealed with excitement when she saw a Kiwibot rolling through Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley.

Tweets: @rikabel, @carnage4life, @mariafarrell, @matthewbevan, @harrysiegel, @atulacharya, @vogon, @jakebackpack, @jasperrlz, @sub8u, @matthewbevan, @simoncarless, and @ruchowdh

Andrei Frumusanu / AnandTech:

MediaTek claims its 7nm chipset is the world's first SoC with an integrated 5G modem, will ship in devices in 2020 using Arm's Cortex-A77 CPU and Mali-G77 GPU — Today MedaTek is making quite an unusual announcement: The company is the first to announce a SoC with an integrated 5G modem.

More: Engadget, Gizmodo, GSMArena.com, XDA Developers, Reuters, PR Newswire, Pocket-lint, The Verge, ExtremeTech, VentureBeat, Business Insider, and Trak.in

Tweets: @philipmichaels and @andyboxall

Megan Graham / CNBC:

Amazon to buy Sizmek's Ad Server and Dynamic Creative Optimization units after the adtech company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March — KEY POINTS — Sizmek Ad Server and Sizmek DCO will operate separately from Amazon Advertising for the time being, Amazon said.

More: AdExchanger, Business Insider, Amazon Advertising, and Adweek

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From Mediagazer

NBC News:

Trump says he was “only kidding” about offering UFC CEO Dana White the press secretary job, after White posted an AI image of himself at the White House lectern

Ed Christman / Billboard:

CISAC Global Collections Report: global music publishing collections grew to nearly $15.89B in 2025, up 5.3% YoY, with digital royalties of $7.25B, up 28% YoY

Hanaa' Tameez / Nieman Lab:

A profile of Nikita Redkar, a creator who produces Bimbo University to explain US political news and culture accessibly and has 674,000 Instagram followers

More News

FinSMEs:

BabbleLabs, which wants to use AI to improve speech quality, accuracy, and personalization in voice apps, raises $14M Series A

More: Startups News and Business Wire

Dani Deahl / The Verge:

In the age of music streaming, missing, bad, or inconsistent song metadata is estimated to have left billions on the table unpaid to artists and musicians

More: 9to5Mac. Tweets: @reckless, @taishicode, @mattk, @madorlandoliz, @heilemann, @brianpolar, @dropslash, @smalldrink, @mysteryroommke, @jsnod, @dgreenstein1, @emanateofficial, @sammyandrews, @danideahl, @cartwro, and @blakereid

Mark Sweney / The Guardian:

Netflix and Amazon made £1.1B in revenue from ~17.7M UK subscribers in 2018, while streaming services of UK's four main commercial broadcasters made ~£530M

More: FierceVideo, MSPoweruser, Variety, and Engadget

BuzzFeed News:

Investigation: US universities, foundations, and retirement plans back funds that invest millions in Chinese surveillance tech companies Megvii and SenseTime

More: TechNode and Slashdot

Tweets: @rmac18, @ahmed, @rmac18, @rmac18, @dtbyler, @miriamelder, @davidmackau, @uyghurproject, @gadyepstein, @mat, @mdudas, @dangillmor, @thegrugq, and @ceodonovan

Maria Deutscher / SiliconANGLE:

Intuit says it is acquiring Origami Logic, an Accel-backed marketing analytics startup that has raised over $64M in funding, in a deal expected to close Q4 2019

More: Intuit Inc. and ZDNet

Natalie Gagliordi / ZDNet:

VMware reports Q1 revenue of $2.27B, up 13% YoY, beating analyst estimates of $2.24B, and net income of $505M, including a gain of $132M from Pivotal

More: VMware, Inc., Forbes, and SiliconANGLE

Larry Dignan / ZDNet:

Dell reports Q1 net income of $329M on revenue of $21.9B, up 3% YoY, below analyst estimates of $22.24B, as server and networking revenue fell 9% YoY to $4.2B

More: The Register, Dell Technologies, and SiliconANGLE. Tweets: @delltech

Reuters:

Sources: Amazon is interested in buying Sprint's prepaid brand Boost Mobile, which T-Mobile and Sprint have already pledged to sell to get their merger approved

More: Vox, CNN, CNBC, BGR, CNET, Fortune, Light Reading, Bloomberg, SiliconANGLE, Ars Technica, TmoNews, PYMNTS.com, Observer, Business Insider, Neowin, Telecoms.com, ValueWalk, FierceWireless, Variety, Android Authority, Gizmodo, TechSpot, Axios, Seeking Alpha, The Verge, Android Central, Beyond Search, Pocketnow, SlashGear, Engadget, Tehrani.com, Android Police, GeekWire, 9to5Mac, and Slashdot

Tweets: @sprintcto, @trengriffin, @amlivemon, @trengriffin, @whatthebit, @reutersbiz, @levynews, @thekenyeung, and @stevekopack

Earlier Picks

Lauren Feiner / CNBC:

Uber reports Q1 revenue of $3.1B, up 20% YoY, gross bookings of $14.65B, up 34%, net loss of $1.01B; Uber Eats revenue grew 31% to $239M, gross bookings up 108%

Lily Hay Newman / Wired:

Google's new policies for Chrome extensions and Drive API will limit the ability of extensions and 3rd party apps to access personal data, starting this summer

More: ZDNet, The Keyword, Chromium Blog, TechSpot, Android Police, Android Central, SecurityWeek, Help Net Security, The Verge, ZDNet, gHacks Technology News, 9to5Google, BleepingComputer, and TechCrunch

Tweets: @lukolejnik, @tsimonite, @ohmdee, and @campuscodi

Janko Roettgers / Variety:

Nreal unveils a $499 consumer version of its Light AR glasses that are compatible with any phone using the Snapdragon 855 chip, available later this year

More: CNET, VentureBeat, The Verge, UploadVR, and Engadget. Tweets: @jetscott. Thanks:@francisybea

Julia Alexander / The Verge:

The YouTube channel of Indian music production company T-Series becomes the first to cross 100M subscribers after a months-long race with PewDiePie

More: Digital Information World, TechSpot, Firstpost Tech, Memeburn, ValueWalk, and Business Insider

Tweets: @youtube and @tseries

Nick Summers / Engadget:

Microsoft is bringing its Xbox Game Pass subscription service to Windows 10 PCs with a “curated library” of more than 100 titles; details to be revealed at E3

Ryan McMorrow / Agence France-Presse:

Investigation finds Huawei has received ~$1.6B in Chinese government grants over past ten years, heavily subsidized land, and favorable export financing terms

More: Financial Times, Telecoms.com, and iPhone in Canada Blog

Tweets: @rwmcmorrow, @gabewildau, @gabewildau, @cold_peace_, @sanverde, @dravirmani, @akannampilly, and @paulmozur

Brian Dowling / Xconomy:

Insight Partners buys a majority share in Boston-based threat intelligence company Recorded Future for $780M, the highest ever price for a threat intel firm

More: TechCrunch, PR Newswire, and Dark Reading

Tweets: @gthuang, @techjournalist, and @pearlf. Thanks:@gthuang

Sam Meredith / CNBC:

An open letter signed by 47 companies, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, and WhatsApp, condemns proposal from the UK's GCHQ to eavesdrop on encrypted messages