Techmeme: Figure, the lending platform led by Mike Cagney, who resigned as CEO of SoFi due to sexual harassment allegations, raises $103M Series C at a $1.2B valuation (Kia Kokalitcheva/Axios)

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Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:

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Will Knight / Wired:

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Bloomberg:

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Tweets: @benbajarin, @spencersoper, @technology, @adrianweckler, and @tsgiles

Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios:

Figure, the lending platform led by Mike Cagney, who resigned as CEO of SoFi due to sexual harassment allegations, raises $103M Series C at a $1.2B valuation — Figure, a San Francisco-based consumer lending platform, raised $103 million in Series C funding led by Morgan Creek Digital at a $1.2 billion valuation.

More: CoinDesk and FinSMEs

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Imgur says it now has 300M MAU and launches Melee, an iOS app where users see a feed of memes and gameplay clips for the games to which they subscribe — 10 years after debut, 300 million monthly user Imgur is one of the last massively popular yet unpersonalized home pages on the internet.

More: VentureBeat and The Verge. Tweets: @joshconstine. Thanks:@sistaklein

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Pranav Dixit / BuzzFeed News:

Kashmiris, who are subject to an ongoing four month internet shutdown, are losing their WhatsApp accounts because of the platform's policy on inactive accounts — On Wednesday, Kashmiris began disappearing from WhatsApp — and no one initially knew why. Citizens of the disputed geographical territory …

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Tweets: @pranavdixit, @saha_abhi1990, @salmansoz, and @vrindabhandari. Thanks:@pranavdixit

Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:

Ming-Chi Kuo: the highest-end model in the 2021 iPhone lineup will launch without a Lightning port, offering a “completely wireless experience” — Apple plans to launch an iPhone without a Lightning connector in 2021, according to a research note from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo obtained by MacRumors.

More: AppleInsider. Tweets: @brianmcc, @klingebeil, @mgsiegler, @tonyromm, @robaeprice, @appleinsider, and @mdrndad

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

FCC investigation finds Verizon, T-Mobile, and US Cellular exaggerated 4G coverage in official filings to the FCC; Ajit Pai has no plans to punish the carriers — FCC buries investigation's finding in 5G press release, won't punish carriers. — 49 with 42 posters participating

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Tweets: @jbrodkin, @callumj, @robert_spalding, and @jbrodkin

Colin Lecher / The Verge:

How the Basel Action Network, which embeds trackers in discarded devices to trace where they end up in the world, uncovered bad practices of an e-waste recycler — How an e-waste sting uncovered a shocking betrayal — Jim Puckett got the messages from his “little lie detectors.”

Tweets: @russellbrandom and @colinlecher

Andrei Frumusanu / AnandTech:

An in-depth look at Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 865 and 765 chips, and why Snapdragon 865 does not come with an integrated 5G modem — We're here in Maui for the second day of Qualcomm's fourth annual Snapdragon summit, for what is probably the most exciting part of the event …

More: PCMag, Pocket-lint, Qualcomm, Android Police, Engadget, The Verge, Android Police, Redmond Pie, Ars Technica, International Business Times, iPhone in Canada Blog, The Next Web, Apple Must, Softpedia News, CNX Software, Philip Elmer‑DeWitt, 9to5Mac, Patently Apple, AppleInsider, VentureBeat, Wired, The Verge, Gizmodo, and ZDNet

Tweets: @ryansmithat, @whatthebit, @rdrv3, @markhachman, @horwitz, and @horwitz. Thanks:@iancutress

Munsif Vengattil / Reuters:

Alibaba-backed Chinese startup AutoX applies to test self-driving vehicles without an in-car backup driver in California — (Reuters) - Chinese startup AutoX, backed by e-commerce giant Alibaba, has applied to test self-driving vehicles without an in-car backup driver in California …

More: TechNode and CNET

Kieren McCarthy / The Register:

Internet Society says private equity firm Ethos Capital will pay $1.135B for the .org top level domain registry — Anger rises over ten-figure sale of registry — Analysis The price tag for one of the internet's largest and most important domain-name registries has finally been revealed: $1.135bn.

More: CNET

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