Techmeme
August 5, 2022, 10:10 AM

Top News

Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Amazon plans to acquire Roomba maker iRobot for $1.7B in an all-cash deal; Colin Angle will remain as iRobot CEO  —  Amazon this morning announced plans to acquire Roomba maker iRobot for an all-cash deal valued at $1.7 billion.  —  “Since we started iRobot, our team has been on a mission …
Nikkei Asia:
Nikkei Asia:
Reuters:
Dan Primack / Axios:
Filing: Twitter says Elon Musk's counterclaims “are factually inaccurate, legally insufficient, and commercially irrelevant” and don't justify ending the deal  —  We still don't have Elon Musk's response to Twitter's lawsuit over his efforts to back out of his $44 billion acquisition …
CoinDesk:
How crypto developer Ian Macalinao posed as 11 independent devs and created a web of DeFi protocols that temporarily inflated the total value locked on Solana  —  The Macalinao brothers used a web of bogus identities to create the illusion of a dev community, juicing value on the Saber protocol and Solana blockchain.
Nicola Kelly / The Guardian:
The UK government plans to require that migrants convicted of a crime scan their faces up to five times per day on a smartwatch; locations will be tracked 24/7  —  Home Office and MoJ plans will require migrants convicted of crimes to take photos up to five times a day
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Google updates search results for queries with quotes to show where the phrase appears in the results snippet instead of an overall description of the page  —  Google has updated how search result snippet in Google Search for queries that contain quotes.  Now, Google will show …
Omer Benjakob / Haaretz:
A prototype of NSO's Pegasus for Israeli police in 2014 shows the UI and features, including real-time wiretapping, reading messages, and remote camera control  —  Israel Police planned to present cabinet with the system eight years ago.  It was intended to be capable of turning the infected phone …
Andrew Hayward / Decrypt:
Soma Biswas / Wall Street Journal:
A New York judge allows Voyager Digital to return $270M in customer cash deposits, settling one of the company's larger issues after filing for bankruptcy  —  Crypto broker got bankruptcy court approval to return cash deposits  —  Cryptocurrency brokerage firm Voyager Digital Holdings Inc. secured approval …
Nelson Wang / CoinDesk:
Block reports Q2 revenue down 6.6% YoY to $4.4B, $2.62B net revenue excluding bitcoin, and Cash App bitcoin revenue down 34% YoY to $1.79B; stock is down 5%+  —  Despite beating projections, the payments company said its overall revenue fell because of a decrease in bitcoin revenue.
Michelle Price / Reuters:
Visa and Mastercard end ties with the ad arm of Pornhub owner MindGeek, after a court ruled Visa must face a lawsuit alleging it is liable for CSAM distribution  —  Visa (V.N) and Mastercard (MA.N) on Thursday said they had suspended ties with the advertisement arm of MindGeek …
Michael del Castillo / Forbes:
A staff member from Senator Cynthia Lummis' office says the SEC is investigating Binance and every US crypto exchange, including Coinbase  —  Widely circulated reports that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating $20 billion crypto exchange Coinbase are just the tip of the iceberg …
Michael Bodley / Blockworks:
Sources: EU-based hedge fund Brevan Howard has raised $1B+ from institutional investors for its crypto unit BH Digital, in the largest crypto hedge fund launch  —  - The inaugural fund's performance has held up quite well, on a relative basis to the market, sources said
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Clubhouse starts beta testing private communities called Houses, which can be created by a person or group looking for a more intimate alternative to Clubs  —  Clubhouse, the social audio app that rose in popularity amid the pandemic, is looking to shake up its platform with the launch of private communities called “Houses.”
Tom Warren / The Verge:

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Earlier Picks

Jackie Davalos / Bloomberg:
Reuters:
Oliver Knight / CoinDesk:
Bloomberg: