Techmeme: Sources: Microsoft made an offer to acquire Pinterest in recent months; source says the talks are not active right now (Financial Times)

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Sources: Microsoft made an offer to acquire Pinterest in recent months; source says the talks are not active right now — Microsoft approached Pinterest in recent months about a potential deal to acquire the $51bn social media company popular with hobbyists posting home decor …

More: The Verge, TechSpot, MUO, OnMSFT.com, Insider, Neowin, coinspeaker.com, PYMNTS.com, cloudpro.co.uk, MSPoweruser, and Windows Central

Tweets: @pandodaily, @counternotions, @spottedfirefly, @carlquintanilla, @shivsharma_5, @thekenyeung, @mgsiegler, @tomwarren, and @bdsams

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft drops the price of foldable Surface Duo by $400 to $999 and says it will arrive in the UK, France, Germany, and Canada on Feb. 18, expanding beyond US — The first international release for Microsoft's dual-screen device — Microsoft is dropping the price of its foldable Surface Duo device …

More: 9to5Google, Engadget, Thurrott, Windows Central, SlashGear, OnMSFT.com, Android Central, and Neowin. Tweets: @tomwarren

Sami Fathi / MacRumors:

Starting with iOS 14.5, Apple will proxy the Safe Browsing service in Safari through its own servers instead of Google's to protect user data — Starting with iOS and iPadOS 14.5, Apple will proxy Google's “Safe Browsing” service used in Safari through its own servers instead of relying …

More: The 8-Bit, appleosophy.com, MacRumors, iPhone Hacks, 9to5Mac, Ubergizmo, Firstpost Tech, iMore, Tom's Guide, and AppleInsider

Tweets: @othermaciej and @ourielohayon

Daniel Goldblatt / The Wrap:

Facebook says Instagram has removed Robert F Kennedy Jr's account for making false claims about COVID-19 and vaccines — Move comes as the company is expanding efforts to crack down on conspiracy theory content — Instagram removed Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s account on Wednesday …

More: Wall Street Journal, Media Matters for America, Washington Post, The Guardian, Reuters, The Daily Beast, and BBC

Tweets: @yashar, @maggienyt, @mattgertz, @blakersdozen, @chelseaclinton, @camliveshere, and @getongab

Mordechai Rorvig / VICE:

Researchers unveil the Ramanujan Machine, a software-based automated conjecturing system that develops new formulas for universal constants in mathematics — Pushing the boundaries of math requires great minds to pose fascinating problems. What if a machine could do it? Now, scientists created one that can.

More: Nature and Slashdot

Tweets: @shashib, @stevestuwill, @motherboard, and @sleepydisease

Dave Gershgorn / OneZero :

CBP scanned 23M+ people with facial recognition tech at airports, seaports, and pedestrian crossings in 2020, and reveals it caught zero imposters at airports — U.S. Customs and Border Protection scanned more than 23 million people in public places with facial recognition technology in 2020

Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Tweets: @stilgherrian, @willoremus, @dlberes, @ozm, @freakonometrics, and @davegershgorn

Katie Roof / Bloomberg:

Modern Health, whose app helps employers provide digital mental health care to employees, raises $74M at a valuation of $1.17B, bringing total raised to $172M — Modern Health, a San Francisco-based mental health platform, says it has raised $74 million in a funding round that pushes its valuation to $1.17 billion.

Tweets: @rochers

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Labelbox, which develops data annotation and labeling software, raises $40M Series C led by B Capital Group, bringing its total raised to $79M — Labelbox, a startup developing a data annotation and labeling platform, today announced that it's raised $40 million, bringing its total raised to $79 million.

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

India's BharatPe, which helps offline merchants accept digital payments, raises $108M Series D, at a $900M valuation, led by Coatue Management — India may soon have another fintech unicorn. BharatPe said on Thursday it has raised $108 million in a financing round that valued …

More: The Economic Times, Tech in Asia, Entrackr, VCCircle, Inc42 Media, and MediaNama

Financial Times:

Banks hope to persuade Biden admin that Big Tech and fintech startups should not be able to offer services that compete with banks without facing the same rules — Banks see a chance to direct tougher regulation against Facebook, Google and fintechs — Wall Street executives see the prospect …

Tweets: @hoofnagle, @richardturrin, and @financialtimes

Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch:

Sweden-based digital bank Northmill raises $30M led by M2 Asset Management — Northmill Bank, the Sweden-based challenger that has around 200,000 customers across three European countries, has raised around $30 million in new funding. — Leading the round is M2 Asset Management …

More: Silicon Canals

Justine Calma / The Verge:

Tesla's $1.5B bitcoin purchase conflicts with its environmental goals, as mining the cryptocurrency consumes massive amounts of energy by design — Tesla's banking on a cryptocurrency that's inherently inefficient — Tesla just gave bitcoin a big boost that's likely to result …

More: Reuters, BBC, Bloomberg, Insider, CoinDesk, Coinmonks, and Newsweek

Tweets: @ruskin147, @reuters, @gaberivera, @thestalwart, @apompliano, @reuters, @alexhern, @slhamlet, @davidsrudin, @chriswarcraft, @brainharrington, @hblodget, @carlquintanilla, @jhweissmann, and @ibd_ecarson

Amy Lewin / Sifted:

Dublin-based food ordering service Flipdish raises €40M round from Tiger Global Management — Pre-Covid, says McCarthy, lots of restaurants relied on platforms like Deliveroo for a small portion of orders, but when everything moved online, “they realised they weren't making a whole load …

More: Silicon Republic, FinSMEs, Forbes, RTÉ, and The Irish Times

Bloomberg:

Sources: EU is considering a deal with TSMC or Samsung to build an advanced semiconductor factory in Europe in an attempt to avoid relying on the US and Asia — - EU wants to boost semiconductor production in the region — Goal is to reduce reliance on Taiwan for cutting-edge chips

More: Tech.eu and SamMobile

Tweets: @zschneeweiss, @cvkrishnan, and @francesca_bria

Bloomberg:

Ahead of its debut Thursday, Bumble raises $2.15B in its IPO with shares priced at $43 each, up from the previous range of $37-39 — - Listing upsized, priced above already elevated range — Wolfe Herd is youngest female CEO to take big U.S. firm public

More: Bloomberg, GlobeNewswire, Reuters, TechCrunch, and Investor's Business Daily

Will Oremus / OneZero :

Clubhouse employs an unusually aggressive user onboarding process, pressuring users to upload contacts before ranking those contacts based on total connections — The app pressures you to upload your phone's contacts — and makes them visible in surprising ways

More: likeable.com. Tweets: @willoremus, @bdeskin, @pkafka, and @willoremus

Elena Schneider / Politico:

Political campaigns are shifting marketing dollars after ad bans by Facebook and Google, with email lists, influencers, and other ad platforms on the rise — Renting, swapping and selling campaign email lists to new candidates and causes is a booming political business, but it comes with risks.

Tweets: @davidsiders, @josh_nelson, @ec_schneider, @opensecretsdc, @juliarosen, @sticka, and @politico

Naman Ramachandran / Variety:

HBO Max to launch in Latin America and the Caribbean in June; existing HBO-branded streaming services in Europe will shift to HBO Max later this year — WarnerMedia's streamer HBO Max is set to launch across 39 Latin American and Caribbean territories in June.

More: Engadget, The Verge, The Streamable, Deadline, and Cord Cutters News

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