Techmeme
February 5, 2020, 9:05 AM

Top News

Charlie Warzel / New York Times:
Shadow's Iowa failure was a dangerous combination of techno-utopianism and laziness, which led to slapdash software engineering, procurement, and deployment  —  Democrats desperately need to win the internet to beat Trump.  Their first big test was a massive failure.  —  Mr. Warzel is an opinion writer at large.
@rabble:
HuffPost:
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Spotify Q4: 271M total MAUs, up 31% YoY, paying users up 29% YoY to 124M, overall revenue $2B, up 24% YoY  —  Streaming music now accounts for more than 80% of all music consumption in key markets like the US, and one of the big leaders in the field is reaping some of the rewards.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Amid coronavirus fears, ZTE cancels its MWC 2020 press conference, LG Electronics says it is withdrawing from exhibiting and participating in the Barcelona expo  —  The second big company to cancel its MWC appearance  —  LG Electronics, the division of LG Corporation responsible for mobile phones …
Twitter:
Twitter says users “may not deceptively share synthetic or manipulated media” likely to cause harm; such tweets will be labeled or removed  —  It's our responsibility to create rules on Twitter that are fair and set clear expectations for everyone on our service.
Danish Khan / The Economic Times:
India's premium smartphone segment grew 29% YoY in 2019; Apple was the fastest growing brand with 41% YoY growth, OnePlus maintained its No. 1 position  —  Apple was the fastest growing premium smartphone brand in 2019 with 41% yearly growth even as China's OnePlus maintained its leadership …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: NYSE owner Intercontinental Exchange has made a takeover offer for eBay that could value the marketplace at more than $30B; eBay stock closes up 8.78%  —  A deal could value the online marketplace at more than $30 billion  —  New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange Inc …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Instagram generated ~$20B in advertising revenue in 2019, making up more than a quarter of Facebook's revenue  —  - Unit brought in about $20 billion in 2019, people familiar say  — Photo-sharing app has gained in importance since 2012 purchase
Emily McCormick / Yahoo Finance:
Disney beats analyst expectations for Q1, reporting $20.86B in Q1 revenue, up 36% YoY, 26.5M subscribers for Disney+, and 30.4M for Hulu, up 33% YoY  —  DIS) posted better than expected results in the company's first report since the launch of its eponymous streaming service.
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Researchers discover a now patched vulnerability in Philips Hue smart light bulbs that could have let hackers infiltrate users' home or corporate networks  —  Might want to check if you've got firmware 1935144040  —  Four years ago, security researchers showed how a flying drone could hack …
Wall Street Journal:
Justice Department Ramps Up Google Probe, With Heavy Focus on Ad Tools  —  Antitrust enforcers have reached out to more than a dozen publishers, ad tech rivals and ad agencies  —  The Justice Department has reached out to more than a dozen companies in its antitrust probe of Google …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Researcher details a backdoor in Huawei-owned HiSilicon chips used in millions of smart devices, including security cameras, that has been active since 2013  —  Researcher said he did not notify HiSilicon due to a lack of trust in the hardware vendor to adequately fix the issue.
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Nvidia's GeForce Now game streaming service launches from beta with Steam, Epic Games Store, Battle.net, and Uplay support, rivaling Google Stadia at $5/month  —  The BYOG cloud gaming service with Steam, Epic, Battle.net, and Uplay support  —  For the past eight years …
David McCabe / New York Times:
How the big companies like Marriott, Disney, and IBM, are pushing to limit Section 230 of the CDA, challenging Facebook, Google, and the internet as we know it  —  A motley group of powerful companies have their knives out for Section 230, which shields platforms from lawsuits over content posted by users.
Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:
The Zebra, which runs an insurance comparison site, raises $38.5M Series C led by Accel Partners, bringing its total raised to $101.5M  —  The Zebra, which operates an insurance comparison site, announced today that it's raised a $38.5 million Series C led by Accel Partners.

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Financial Times:
Wall Street Journal:
Davey Alba / New York Times:
Abner Li / 9to5Google: