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April 15, 2020, 10:00 AM
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Mediagazer
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| Miles Kruppa / Financial Times: |
Sources: Airbnb raises another $1B in debt from investors including Apollo Global and Silver Lake, after raising a similar $1B funding round last week — New debt finance deal comes a week after an equal-sized funding round to help weather crisis — Airbnb is raising $1bn of senior debt …
More:
Bloomberg, Airbnb Newsroom, CNBC, The Verge, The Next Web, Reuters, South China Morning Post, Yahoo Finance, Axios, Silicon Republic, and Business Insider
Tweets: @gilliantan, @lisaabramowicz1, @dee_bosa, @bullyesq, @mdudas, and @johnmiddlekauff
| Annie Palmer / CNBC: |
Amazon will cut commission rates for its affiliate program starting April 21; amount of drop dependent on category, rates for grocery products dropping 5% to 1% — - Amazon on Tuesday told members of its affiliates program that it will cut commission rates beginning April 21.
More:
The Verge, Engadget, PYMNTS.com, The Digital Reader, and Variety
| Monica Nickelsburg / GeekWire: |
Washington AG Bob Ferguson sues Facebook, saying the company violated its commitment to not sell political ads in the state — Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a new lawsuit against Facebook claiming the social network continues to violate state laws governing political ad disclosures.
More:
The Seattle Times, The Hill, TechCrunch, The Stranger, The Olympian, One America News Network, r/announcements, and MediaNama
Tweets: @wagop and @seattletimes
| Ben Thompson / Stratechery: |
The coronavirus crisis underscores the power and dominance of big tech companies, and that novel legislative approaches are required to regulate them — Apple and Google, who last Friday jointly | announced new capabilities for contact tracing coronavirus carriers at scale …
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STAT, Yahoo Finance, Forrester, AdExchanger, Telecoms.com, Silicon Canals, Fast Company, and OneZero
Tweets: @carnage4life, @njodal, @sethjberman, @ahmed, and @stratechery
| Zoe Schiffer / The Verge: |
Medium's opaque moderation of user-created content related to COVID-19 has allowed misinfo to spread, making it harder to tell fact from fiction on the platform — The platform empowers voices — and misinformation — On March 20th, an article about the novel coronavirus started to spread.
Tweets: @zoeschiffer, @reckless, @niemanlab, and @knguyen
| Bryan Menegus / Gizmodo: |
Amazon says a manager at a facility in California died of COVID-19 on March 31, its first warehouse worker death; Amazon claims worker contracted virus offsite — A worker at an Amazon facility in California has died after contracting covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
More:
CNBC, Business Insider, GeekWire, Ars Technica, The Guardian, Business Insider, Adweek, SiliconANGLE, Reuters, and GameSpot
Tweets: @kateconger, @naomiaklein, @sensanders, @richardtrumka, @jptormey, @kateconger, @joshdzieza, and @buzzfeednews
| Ryne Hager / Android Police: |
Nest will temporarily reduce the recording quality of its security cameras by default to reduce bandwidth impact amid COVID-19, users can easily revert change — Google is temporarily dropping Nest camera recording quality and bandwidth over the next few days in an attempt to reduce strain on ISPs and the internet in general.
More:
TechCrunch, Android Authority, 9to5Google, The Verge, MacRumors, Cult of Mac, Engadget, Mashable, and CNET
Tweets: @richdemuro and @caseynewton
| Kanishka Singh / Reuters: |
Self-driving car startup Zoox agrees to settle lawsuit with Tesla over misappropriation of trade secrets, requiring it to pay an undisclosed amount — (Reuters) - Zoox Inc said on Tuesday it had settled a lawsuit with Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) after admitting that some new hires from the electric carmaker …
More:
Engadget
| Romain Dillet / TechCrunch: |
Slite, which lets employees collect and organize documentation, share documents, and create a shared company handbook, raises $11M Series A led by Spark Capital — French startup Slite has raised an $11 million Series A round led by Spark Capital with existing investors also participating.
More:
Tech.eu, VentureBeat, and Silicon Canals
| Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg: |
Houseparty has seen 50M signups in the past month and has been the most downloaded social networking app in the US App Store every day since March 20 — Sima Sistani has been getting through the coronavirus outbreak's shelter-in-place order the past month in many of the same ways others have …
More:
9to5Mac
| CNBC: |
Apple launches a tool that shows how well people are social distancing, using anonymized data from Apple Maps, similar to efforts from Google — - Apple on Tuesday launched a new tool that shows how well people are following social distancing guidelines. — It gathers anonymous data …
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Apple, ZDNet, Washington Post, Reuters, O'Grady's PowerPage, Tech Xplore, Neowin, Ubergizmo, Pocket-lint, Silicon Republic, Inc42 Media, MACお宝 …, MacRumors, Firstpost Tech, Forbes, Macworld, Mercury News, Input, The Hill, SlashGear, Wccftech, Engadget, The Mac Observer, Computerworld, AppleInsider, The Verge, iPhone in Canada Blog, CNET, Patently Apple, and Yahoo Finance
Tweets: @tim_cook, @geoffreyfowler, @mattrosoff, @buckeyecapsfan, @bonnaud_dowell, @plaidsir, @benwood, @stroughtonsmith, @neilcybart, @rustybrick, @reneritchie, and @megancgraham. Thanks:@mattrosoff
| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Facebook debuts Kit, an Apple Watch app, for one-tap communication with close friends via audio recording, emoji, location sharing, scribble, more — Facebook's internal R&D group has today launched a new app that lets you keep up with your close friends via your Apple Watch.| Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
Onfido, which provides a two-step online identity verification service, raises $100M led by TPG Growth, bringing its total raised to $200M — Contactless transactions have become a major priority at a time when people all around the world are minimising their contact with others outside …
More:
SiliconANGLE, ZDNet, VentureBeat, Tech.eu, and Enterprise Times
| Wolfie Zhao / CoinDesk: |
China is ready to launch its first domestic blockchain platform, Blockchain Service Network, for application development; platform hints at global expansion — China is about to launch its national blockchain platform, part of the country's grand strategy to lead the digital transformation of the world economy.
Tweets: @coindesk and @androidsaint
| Paul Sawers / VentureBeat: |
Awake Security, which analyzes network traffic to identify and assess internal and external threats, raises $36M Series C led by Evolution Equity Partners — Awake Security, a cybersecurity platform that analyzes network traffic to identify and assess internal and external threats … | Andrei Frumusanu / AnandTech: |
OnePlus debuts $699 OnePlus 8, $899 OnePlus 8 Pro with high-refresh 6.55" and 6.78" AMOLED hole-punch screens, WiFi 6, on-screen fingerprint readers, more — As the world is in quarantine, smartphone companies aren't standing still and are still moving forward with their new product launches.| Jon Porter / The Verge: |
More:
The Verge, Input, South China Morning Post, Android Police, TechRepublic, CNET, 9to5Google, Android Authority, Android Authority, Mashable, IGN, Gotta Be Mobile, Ars Technica, Engadget, The Verge, Android Police, Gizmodo, and The Verge
Tweets: @evanrodgers, @inputmag, @joshuatopolsky, @techradar, @mattswider, and @backlon
| Manish Singh / TechCrunch: |
Indian logistics SaaS startup FarEye raises $25M Series D led by Microsoft's M12, bringing its total raised to $40M — More than 150 e-commerce and delivery companies globally use an Indian logistics startup's service to work out the optimum way before they ship items to their customers.| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
YouTube launches Video Builder, a simple, free DIY tool to help SMBs create short videos — YouTube today is launching a new tool aimed at small businesses who need a simple, low-cost way to create videos, but may not have the creative experience or technical know-how required to do so.
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The Keyword, Digital Trends, BetaNews, SEMrush blog, Social Media Today, Neowin, Search Engine Land, USA Today, Search Engine Journal, CNET, Tubefilter, 9to5Google, OnMSFT.com, and Adweek
Tweets: @googleads, @glenngabe, and @googlecanada
| FinSMEs: |
Push Technology, which provides real-time data streaming and messaging services, raises £10M Series A led by Maven Capital Partners — Push Technology, a Los Gatos, CA- and Belfast, Northern Ireland-based provider of real-time data streaming and messaging solutions, completed a £10m Series A round of financing.| Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: |
Edited, a retail tech startup leveraging AI to optimize product pricing, raises $29M led by Boston-based Wavecrest Growth Partners and Beringea UK — Edited, a retail tech company leveraging AI to optimize product pricing, today announced that it raised $29 million.| Hugh Langley / Business Insider: |
In letter to senators, Verily says it has tested 7,390 people for COVID-19 as of April 9, less than a month after site launch, will keep Google login mandatory — - Google's Verily division has been screening and testing participants for COVID-19, but lawmakers are concerned over how it is collecting and using people's data.
Tweets: @gregbensinger
| Nat Friedman / The GitHub Blog: |
GitHub announces private repositories with unlimited collaborators are now free and reduces the price of the existing paid Team plan from $9 to $4 per month — All of the core GitHub features are now free for everyone. 🎉 — Until now, if your organization wanted to use GitHub …
More:
The Register, TechCrunch, Ars Technica, The Next Web, BetaNews, Engadget, Corey, the newlsetter, ZDNet, Silicon Republic, The Verge, XDA Developers, CNX Software, Android Police, GitLab, TechRadar.com, OnMSFT.com, Kähler VC.X, Thurrott, Digital Trends, VentureBeat, SiliconANGLE, and IT Management
Tweets: @github, @codinghorror, @vinayakh, and @ow
| Lucas Matney / TechCrunch: |
Nifty Games, which is partnering with NFL and NBA to publish officially licensed games, raises $12M Series A led by March Capital Partners — Nifty Games is aiming to reshape the mobile gaming strategies of national sports leagues, partnering with associations like the NFL and NBA …
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VentureBeat and FinSMEs
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