Techmeme: BMW makes Apple CarPlay an $80/year subscription service for new car owners (Bradley Brownell/Jalopnik)

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Bradley Brownell / Jalopnik:

BMW makes Apple CarPlay an $80/year subscription service for new car owners — From the 2019 model year onward any new BMW sold will require the owner to pay an $80 annual fee in order to connect their Apple iTelephone device to their premium luxury automobile.

More: Engadget, Cult of Mac, Yahoo News, Network World, Ubergizmo, BMW BLOG, MobileSyrup, LeftLaneNews, EFTM, Paul Tan's Automotive News, Trusted Reviews, Fudzilla.com, The Drive, iClarified, SlashGear, and Tom's Guide

Tweets: @dsilverman, @gerryconway, and @andrewjwatkins

Drew FitzGerald / Wall Street Journal:

Inside the complex negotiations over the deal that is about to transform Dish into the fourth national wireless carrier in the US — Charlie Ergen, the poker-playing billionaire who co-founded Dish Network, has been hoarding airwaves for years. Now the U.S. government is handing him the cards he needs to make his play.

More: Bloomberg, The Verge, Android Police, CNET, CNET, The Verge, and Axios

Tweets: @deveshsenapati, @mdudas, @chrisvale, @wsj, @jrosenworcel, and @backlon

Taylor Lorenz / The Atlantic:

How Famous Birthdays, which has 20M unique monthly users, became Gen Z's Wikipedia for new internet stars and a talent resource for the entertainment industry — If you want to know who the biggest TikTok star is right now, who is in Emma Chamberlain's squad, or where Baby Ariel grew up …

Tweets: @glenngabe, @taylorlorenz, @theatlantic, @taylorlorenz, and @taylorlorenz

See also Mediagazer

Jane Zhang / South China Morning Post:

Source: TikTok owner ByteDance has acquired UK-based AI startup Jukedeck, whose software can autonomously compose music, for an undisclosed amount — Deal raises potential for TikTok to make AI-powered music composition widely accessible around the world The initiative raises the potential …

More: Music Ally, TechCrunch, The Verge, hypebot, KrASIA, Firstpost Tech, The Daily Dot, The Next Web, equalocean.com, TechNode, and Deadline

Jonathan Vanian / Fortune:

Q&A with Satya Nadella on fostering Sony's success with Azure, the role of Xcloud in Microsoft's strategy to expand games beyond the living room, and more — Satya Nadella has never considered himself a “gamer,” but Civilization did manage to capture the attention of the Microsoft CEO for a stretch when he was younger.

Daniel Boffey / The Guardian:

Leaked report: UK harvested info from EU databases, including 54K files on criminals, terrorists, and missing persons, likely in preparation for no-deal Brexit — NCA harvesting EU crime databases in attempt to mitigate loss of access to data, leaked report suggests

More: ZDNet and EUobserver

Tweets: @jmlw1, @cbridge_chief, and @europestreet

Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch:

Benchling, which provides software for managing biotech research, raises $34.5M Series C led by Menlo Ventures — In a field where the laboratory notebook is still considered the state of the art, it's no wonder a company like Benchling, which provides software for managing life sciences research was able to nab $34.5 million.

More: FinSMEs and PR Newswire. Tweets: @grgyap

Satnam Narang / Tenable:

How the tactics used by porn bots on Instagram keep evolving to avoid detection, including use of intermediary accounts and literary quotes in photo captions — Incentivized by affiliate programs, scammers are evolving how they utilize fake Instagram accounts to target users on the popular social media platform.

Tweets: @halfrebel

Uri Berkovitz / Globes Online:

Israel-based vCita, which is developing a business management app and CRM system for very small businesses, raises $15M — The Israeli company has developed a business management app and CRM system for very small businesses. — Israeli business management app developer for small businesses vCita …

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Spectral MD, a Dallas-based startup developing an AI-powered burn and wound imaging system, raises $27M in research funding from the US Department of Health — Spectral MD, a Dallas, Texas-based startup developing an AI-powered burn and wound imaging system, today announced that it's secured $27 million …

Kara Swisher / Vox:

Q&A with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on quarantining /r/The_Donald, a decision he says was intended to give the community a chance to change — /r/The_Donald was punished for hosting “violent content,” and Huffman isn't convinced the community's moderators are taking that problem seriously enough.

Tweets: @voxdotcom

Variety:

Inside Spotify's Project Magneto, its failed multiyear effort to create Spotify TV, a highly personalized video streaming service, and the hardware to run it — Spotify has made no secret of wanting to be the world's biggest audio platform, but it wasn't all that long ago that the Swedish streamer was eyeing video.

More: MSPoweruser. Tweets: @schaudenfraud, @openoutcrier, and @svenaxel

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