Amazon says it is field testing Amazon Scout, a small autonomous six-wheeled delivery robot, in Snohomish County, Washington  —  Delivery ,Washington,Technology,Innovation  —  At Amazon, we continually invest in new technologies to benefit customers.  We've been hard at work developing a new …

Google launches YouTube TV in 95 new US markets, says it now covers 98% of US households  —  98 percent of US households are covered as of today, with the rest coming soon  —  YouTube TV is finally nearing nationwide availability.  The streaming TV service first launched in February 2017 …

Waymo to invest $13.6M in a factory for level 4 autonomous cars in Michigan, partnering with Magna to install Waymo's self-driving system in cars made by others  —  (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's Waymo self-driving vehicle unit said on Tuesday it plans to build a plant in Michigan to transform vehicles …

After Netflix price hikes, Hulu will lower the price of its base, ad-supported subscription plan to $5.99/mo, down from the current $7.99/mo, starting Feb. 26  —  The core service is getting cheaper, but live TV now costs more  —  Hulu just announced that it will lower the price of its base …

Microsoft is automatically installing NewsGuard, a plug-in that guides users on which news websites can be trusted, on mobile versions of its Edge browser  —  Mail Online rated one out of five for credibility by new feature to fight fake news  —  Microsoft's internet browser is warning users …

Despite Bitcoin's dive, thousands of Georgians have sold cars to buy computers to mine Bitcoin; ~10% of the country's energy output goes into mining Bitcoin  —  Tax breaks, land deals and cheap energy have spurred cryptocurrency mining in Georgia, which wants to be a digital data leader.

A look at the history of LiveJournal, the early blogging platform that boasted 10M+ accounts at its height but faltered after questionable business decisions  —  George RR Martin's platform switch reminds us of an early blogging giant greatly changed.  —  Last April, famed writer …

Meizu announces Zero, a smartphone with no ports, physical buttons, or SIM card slot; instead it has eSIM support and 18-watt fast wireless charging  —  The Meizu Zero is here - the world's first phone without physical buttons, speaker cutout and even without a USB port for conventional wired charging.

Candy Ventures acquires AR startup Blippar, which went into administration last month after raising $130M+, and will reform it as a new business with same CEO  —  - British property tycoon Nick Candy has bought Blippar, the augmented reality startup which collapsed late last year.

Confluent, the company behind open source streaming data project Apache Kafka, raises $125M Series D led by Sequoia Capital, source says at a $2.5B valuation  —  Open source software has produced a new multi-billion-dollar company - one that has some of Silicon Valley's best-known venture firms jockeying …

Anchorage, which holds and safeguards crypto assets for institutions, comes out of stealth after raising $17M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz  —  I'm not allowed to tell you exactly how Anchorage keeps rich institutions from being robbed of their cryptocurrency, but the off-the-record demo was damn impressive.

Twitter begins limited rollout of a new web interface with a two-column layout, keyboard shortcuts, a dedicated emoji button, and a revised trends section  —  Don't be surprised if Twitter looks very different on the web in the near future.  The social network has started rolling …

Consumer finance journalist Martin Lewis drops his lawsuit against Facebook over scam ads, after the company agrees to donate £3M to set up an anti-scam project  —  Consumer finance journalist drops action as firm agrees to give £3m to anti-scam project

US DoL files complaint against Oracle for discrimination against women and people of color, seeks $400M+ for workers who have suffered pay inequities  —  US labor department accuses company of rampant exclusion of black and Hispanic people in hiring and higher pay for white men

Electric.ai, the NYC startup that helps companies automate their IT support services via a chat-based service, has raised $25M Series B round led by GGV  —  Electric.ai, the NY-based startup that offers chat-based IT support, has announced the close of a $25 million Series B round led by GGV.

The Motion Picture Association of America has added Netflix as a member, the first internet-based service to be added  —  UPDATED with Netflix officially joining: It's official, Netflix is a member of the MPAA.  The Washington, DC-based organization just dropped the following release:

Google spent $21.2M on US govt lobbying in 2018, up from $18.04M in 2017; Facebook spent $12.62M, up from $11.51M; and Microsoft spent $9.52M, up from $8.5M  —  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google disclosed on Tuesday that it spent a company-record $21.2 million on lobbying …

Patreon says it has 3M+ patrons, up by 1M+ in 2018, who support 100K+ creators; the company will pay creators $500M in 2019, reach $1B paid since launch in 2013  —  Membership services platform Patreon now has more than 3 million patrons who pay to support any of its over 100,000 creators every month, the company announced Wednesday.

Alexa AI scientists describe in a paper a technique that uses millions of unannotated interactions with Amazon's voice assistant to reduce NLP error rate by 8%  —  Developing an AI system capable of understanding natural language isn't just time-consuming — it's really expensive.

Andela, which trains and places African programmers to work remotely for US companies, raises $100M Series D from Al Gore's Generation Investment Management  —  Outsourcing isn't generally seen as the most high-minded of industries.  But when the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative …

Uplift, which works with airlines and sites like Kayak to offer travelers vacation financing, raises $123M Series C, expects to drive nearly $1B in loans in '19  —  Travel financing startup Uplift is announcing that it has raised $123 million in Series C funding.

New research details how two widely received spam email campaigns over the past few months were made possible by a previously detailed weakness at GoDaddy.com  —  Two of the most disruptive and widely-received spam email campaigns over the past few months — including an ongoing sextortion email scam …

Q&A with the ACLU's Jon Callas, formerly of Apple, on the need for tech expertise in policymaking, the biggest challenges for the security industry, and more  —  Apple security expert Jon Callas, who helped build protection for billions of computers and smartphones against criminal hackers …

Desktop Metal, a maker of 3D metal printing systems for commercial and industrial use, raises $160M led by a subsidiary of Koch Industries at a ~$1.5B valuation  —  Why it matters: The Massachusetts startup has now raised more venture capital ($438m total) than any other 3D printing company in history …