Techmeme
February 14, 2020, 8:20 PM

Top News

Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Facebook to allow influencers to produce sponsored content for US politicians and political campaigns, if the posts are clearly identified as paid partnerships  —  Bloomberg's bad memes might just be the beginning  —  Facebook will allow influencers to produce sponsored content …
Kerry Flynn / CNN:
HQ Trivia, the company behind the once popular live mobile trivia game, is shutting down  —  New York (CNN Business)It's over for HQ Trivia.  —  The company behind the once popular live mobile trivia game is shutting down, CNN Business has learned.  HQ will part ways with 25 full-time employees.
Takashi Mochizuki / Bloomberg:
Sources: Sony PlayStation 5's manufacturing costs may be around $450 per unit due to scarce components  —  - May wait for Microsoft's Xbox group to make first pricing move  — New PlayStation VR headset also planned after PS5 launch  —  Scarce components have pushed the manufacturing costs …
Mark Sullivan / Fast Company:
Source: Apple is not happy with the QTM 525 mm-wave antenna module Qualcomm is offering for this year's 5G iPhones and is trying to design its own antenna  —  In a year where the 5G radio will be the new iPhone's spotlight feature, Apple has decided to design the phone's antenna itself.
Bloomberg:
Gerard Williams III, the former Apple exec sued by the company for allegedly poaching employees for his startup Nuvia, claims Apple is poaching his employees  —  A former Apple Inc. chip executive sued by the iPhone maker for allegedly forming a startup while at Apple and illegally poaching employees accuses …
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Behind Signal's push to go mainstream by adding features like iPad support, ephemeral images and video, downloadable customizable stickers, and emoji reactions  —  The encryption app is putting a $50 million infusion from WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton to good use, building out features to help it go mainstream.
Benjamin Mullin / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Google is in talks with publishers, mostly outside the US, about paying a licensing fee for content that would be in a news product  —  Alphabet Inc.'s Google is in talks with publishers about paying a licensing fee for content in a news product, according to people familiar with the matter …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
DOJ has charged the owner of Helix, a dark web Bitcoin mixer service operating from 2014-2017, for allegedly laundering bitcoins worth $300M+ at the time  —  This is the first case the DOJ has brought against a Bitcoin mixer.  —  US authorities have arrested and charged an Ohio man for running a …
Liana Baker / Bloomberg:
Toast, a cloud-based restaurant management platform, raises $400M at a $4.9B valuation, says its revenue grew 109% in 2019  —  - Restaurant payment technology firm raises $400 million  — Toast's new valuation is up from $2.7 billion last year  —  Toast Inc., which makes point …

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:
Fast, affordable law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
Deep dive into SalesIQ's Summer '26 release: 40+ features for the agentic era  —  We've already introduced you to Zoho SalesIQ's Summer '26 release, our annual release, and the one where SalesIQ enters a new territory: the era of agentic intelligence.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

The Upstarts Podcast:
Blitzy's Brian Elliott: Cursor And Claude Code Are Looking At Your Enterprise Code 'Through A Straw'
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
Re-Release: The Death of Hollywood? W/ Allan Loeb
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Great Chat:
Maybe Twitter isn't real life
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's Plan To Merge Chat And Agents — With Greg Brockman
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Encore: Inside Joe Weisenthal's brain
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:20 PM ET, February 14, 2020.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Bloomberg Law:
Social Science One:
Danny Crichton / TechCrunch: