Techmeme
August 12, 2019, 4:45 PM

Top News

Sarah Krouse / Wall Street Journal:
WordPress.com owner Automattic will buy Tumblr from Verizon for an undisclosed amount, taking on about 200 staffers  —  Carrier sheds blogging site for nominal amount as part of media unit revamp  —  Verizon Communications Inc. VZ -.20% has agreed to sell its blogging website Tumblr …
New York Times:
How YouTube radicalized Brazil, diverting users to conspiracy and far-right channels, elevating Bolsonaro's party, and possibly creating a public health crisis  —  NITERÓI, Brazil — When Matheus Dominguez was 16, YouTube recommended a video that changed his life.
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Sources: Facebook halted acquisition talks with Houseparty late last year due to antitrust concerns and began internal changes to make itself harder to break up  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Senator Elizabeth Warren has called for the breakup of big tech companies like Facebook.
Steve Dent / Engadget:
Samsung has unveiled ISOCELL Bright HMX, a 108MP smartphone camera sensor developed in collaboration with Xiaomi, one of the largest ever at 1/1.33-inches  —  With the smartphone megapixel camera wars raging on, Samsung has fired a significant shot.  It unveiled a 108-megapixel smartphone …
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
Attentive raises $40M Series B led by Sequoia for its mobile messaging tools for retailers  —  Attentive, a startup helping retailers personalize their mobile messages, is announcing that it has raised $40 million in Series B funding.  —  The startup was founded by Brian Long and Andrew Jones …
More: FinSMEs and Attentive
Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:
AI-powered search company Lucidworks raises $100M from investors including Francisco Partners and TPG Sixth Street Partners, following last year's $50M Series E  —  AI-powered search venture Lucidworks has raised $100 million from Francisco Partners and TPG Sixth Street Partners …
Wall Street Journal:
The FBI is seeking an early alerting tool that scans public data from social media to monitor threats to the US, which may violate Facebook and Twitter policies  —  Agency solicits vendor proposals to collect data from Facebook, other social media to head off safety threats
Robert Frank / CNBC:
Wheels Up, a subscription-based private aviation company that wants to be the Airbnb of private aviation, raises $128M Series D at a valuation of $1.1B  —  KEY POINTS  — Wheels Up, the private aviation start-up that counts Tom Brady and Serena Williams as members, says it completed …
More: FinSMEs
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Roblox says it has 2M+ game creators worldwide who are on track to earn $100M in 2019, debuts a Developer Marketplace for creators' development assets and tools  —  A week after gaming platform Roblox announced its new milestone of 100 million monthly users — topping Minecraft …

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Earlier Picks

Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Jon Fingas / Engadget: