Techmeme
February 19, 2020, 2:55 AM

Top News

Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Twitter acquires Chroma Labs, which makes tools for video and photo creation, will split team across product, design, and engineering, shut down Chroma Stories  —  - Company builds photo, video-editing features for social media  — Chroma will join Twitter to work on ‘conversations’ products
Karen Hao / MIT Technology Review:
Interviews with current and former employees reveal how OpenAI has become more secretive as it tries to juggle its ideals with the need to finance its research  —  The AI moonshot was founded in the spirit of transparency.  This is the inside story of how competitive pressure eroded that idealism.
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Ring makes two-factor authentication mandatory and pauses use of most third-party analytics services as it devises ways to limit data sharing with third parties  —  Ring is continuing its bid to improve privacy and security after facing criticism.  As of today, the Amazon brand will start requiring …
Nicholas Quah / Hot Pod News:
Patreon has launched Patreon Capital, which provides creators with cash advances they pay back with slight interest using income earned on the platform  —  I was tempted to kick this story off with a platitude along the lines of: “Starting something is the hardest part.”
Nilesh Christopher / VICE:
An Indian election candidate created multiple deepfakes of his own video with him speaking different languages to access voters, reaching ~15M WhatsApp users  —  On February 7, a day ahead of the Legislative Assembly elections in Delhi, two videos of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) …
Robert Hof / SiliconANGLE:
Dell announces it is selling its RSA cybersecurity firm to a consortium led by private equity firm Symphony Technology Group for $2.075B  —  Updated:  —  Dell Technologies Inc. announced Tuesday it's selling its venerable RSA Security LLC business to a consortium led by Palo Alto …
Hugh Son / CNBC:
LendingClub is acquiring Boston-based online bank Radius Bancorp in a deal valued at $185M, making it the first US fintech company to acquire a bank  —  - LendingClub, a fintech company that pioneered personal loans made online, is buying a U.S. bank to give it access to a stable and cheaper source of funding, CNBC has learned.
Bloomberg:
Sources: iPhone SE 2 is on track to launch in March despite coronavirus crisis, and updated iPad Pro models with a new camera system are expected in H1 2020  —  - Coronavirus has hurt both supply and demand for iPhone maker  — Low-cost iPhone plans said to remain on track for March launch
Lauren Kaori Gurley / VICE:
Kickstarter employees vote 46-37 to unionize with the Office and Professional Employees International Union  —  Kickstarter employees voted to form a union with the Office and Professional Employees International Union, which represents more than 100,000 white collar workers.
Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch:
Atomico announces its fifth fund has closed at $820M, bringing their total assets to $2.7B; Atomico will mostly fund European startups at Series A  —  Atomico, the European venture capital firm founded by Skype's Niklas Zennström, has announced that it has closed its fifth fund …
Alfred Ng / CNET:
ElectionGuard, the open-source voting machine software Microsoft announced in May 2019, gets its first real-world test today in a local vote in Fulton, WI  —  ElectionGuard isn't designed to make voting machines safe from hackers.  It's meant to make hacking them pointless.
Doris Yu / Tech in Asia:
Indonesia-based Eureka, which provides consumer intelligence to mobile carriers and enterprises by using AI and mobile data analytics, raises $20M Series B  —  Eureka AI, an AI enterprise software company, announced that it has raised US$20 million in a series B funding round co-led by Apis Partners …

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More News

Steven Overly / Politico:
Eileen Yu / ZDNet:

Earlier Picks

Dr. Ian Cutress / AnandTech:
Steve Streza:
Andreessen Horowitz:
Amelia Lucas / CNBC:
Jay Peters / The Verge: