Techmeme
May 16, 2020, 11:20 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: DOJ and state AGs are likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google as soon as this summer, focusing on its ad business and search dominance  —  Both the federal and state investigations are focused on Google's ad business  —  WASHINGTON—Both the Justice Department and a group …
Owen Williams / OneZero :
Facebook's purchase of Giphy gives FB insight into how and where gifs are shared outside of its own apps, including device IDs and keystrokes in Giphy tools  —  GIPHY joins Facebook's data collection arsenal  —  Facebook announced on Friday that it will buy Giphy, a popular GIF search engine …
Axios:
Facebook to buy Giphy, keep its branding, integrate with Instagram; sources say the deal is worth ~$400M, while Giphy was valued at ~$600M in its latest round  —  Facebook has agreed to buy Giphy, the popular platform of sharable animated images, Axios has learned from multiple sources.
More: The Verge, About Facebook, GIPHY, Ars Technica, The Verge, The Information, CNBC, Engadget, BetaNews, Crunchbase News, TechRadar.com, The Edge Newsletter, Unique Business Models, Silicon Valley Business …, Digital Trends, Reuters, Ubergizmo, Gizchina, Tom's Guide, The Daily Dot, AdExchanger, Daring Fireball, SiliconANGLE, Social Media Today, Gizmodo, Input, Adweek, Tubefilter, Android Authority, SlashGear, Los Angeles Times, TechCrunch, The Mac Observer, TechSpot, Wccftech, CNN, The Next Web, Neowin, Pocket-lint, XDA Developers, Washington Post, Android Headlines, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, Hollywood Reporter, Thurrott, Business Insider, iMore, and TechCrunch
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Sources: Clubhouse raised a Series A round from a16z, which includes $10M in primary capital and at least $2M in secondary shares, at a $100M valuation  —  Clubhouse is a voice-based social media app with about 5,000 beta test users.  Prospective listeners have to sign up for a waitlist via Google form …
Reuters:
US bans sales to Huawei of semiconductors and semiconductor designs made abroad using certain US software and technology  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Friday moved to block shipments of semiconductors to Huawei Technologies from global chipmakers, in an action that could ramp up tensions with China.
Global Times:
Stratechery:
Forcing Facebook and Google to pay for news could lead to uncritical reporting on tech; better approaches would tackle roots of media woes, including ad markets  —  Exponent — as promised! — will be back tomorrow, talking about podcasting, Spotify, and working from home.  —  On to the update:
Jina Moore / Rest of World:
A deep dive into Sudan's 2019 internet shutdown, how telecom engineers disrupted the government's control over the internet, and the future of digital rights  —  How citizens, telecom employees, and activists in Sudan turned a battle for digital rights into a referendum on the government

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Featured Podcasts

Grit:
The Pull to Build: Joubin Mirzadegan on Grit and Starting Roadrunner
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
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Lenny's Podcast:
The 100-person AI lab that became Anthropic and Google's secret weapon | Edwin Chen (Surge AI)
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Big Technology Podcast:
AI Device Wars Heat Up, RIP Metaverse?, Netflix Acquires Warner Brothers
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
"Hollywood is Truly Freaked Out." Inside the Netflix/WBD Deal with Lucas Shaw
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.
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Hard Fork:
OpenAI Calls a 'Code Red' + Which Model Should I Use? + The Hard Fork Review of Slop
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
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