Techmeme
June 21, 2016, 9:30 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Tencent and its partners to pay $8.6B for a majority stake in Supercell, in a deal that values the Finnish game maker at $10.2B  —  Chinese internet major's deal to buy stake from Japan's SoftBank values Supercell at $10.2 billion  —  HONG KONG—Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd …
Alexander Martin / Wall Street Journal:
SoftBank President Nikesh Arora to Step Down  —  Former Google executive has been under pressure from investors  —  TOKYO—Under fire from investors, SoftBank Group Corp. President Nikesh Arora is stepping down, marking an abrupt end to the tenure of founder and Chief Executive Masayoshi Son's handpicked successor.
Rob Levine / Billboard:
Taylor Swift among 180 artists and organizations signing petition for DMCA reform in ad spot, protesting “safe harbor”, upon which services like YouTube rely  —  For the last three months, the music industry has been fighting — or at least negotiating in public — with YouTube.
Tony Romm / Politico:
Apple CEO Tim Cook will host a fundraiser for House Speaker Paul Ryan next week in the wake of Apple pulling support for the GOP convention over Trump  —  Apple CEO Tim Cook will host a fundraiser with House Speaker Paul Ryan next week as the iPhone maker tries to strengthen its relationships …
Madhumita Murgia / Telegraph:
Spotify says it has 100M+ monthly active users, adding 1.8M monthly, with 30% as paying subscribers  —  Spotify has confirmed that it has more than 100m monthly active users on its music streaming service today.  —  30pc of these users are paying subscribers, leading to an almost doubling …
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Peter Thiel-backed mobile banking startup Number26 raises $40M in Series B round led by Horizons Ventures, touts over 200K users  —  Number26, a Peter Thiel-backed mobile banking startup that's setting out to create the bank account of the future, has raised $40 million in a Series B round led by Horizons Ventures.
More: Tech.eu and TechCrunch
Tim Hardwick / MacRumors:
Bank of America offering cardless withdrawals using Apple Pay at over 3K ATMs equipped with NFC in US  —  Bank of America has begun rolling out support for withdrawing cash from its ATMs using Apple Pay.  —  Approximately 650 card-less ATMs were deployed in the San Francisco area in May …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Instagram doubles monthly users to 500M in 2 years, sees 300M daily  —  Instagram hit a major milestone today, and its growth is actually accelerating over time thanks to popularity overseas in countries like Japan, Germany, France, and Indonesia.  Instagram now has over 500 million users, twice its count from two years ago.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Tumblr to launch live video on Tuesday with an expanded strategy for real-time content  —  Twitter has Periscope.  Amazon has Twitch.  Google has YouTube's live streaming.  And Facebook has Facebook Live.  Now, Tumblr is getting into live video, too.  The company is preparing to launch …
Ken Yeung / VentureBeat:
All of Facebook's board of directors, including Peter Thiel, are re-elected, and shareholders vote to issue non-voting Class C shares  —  Facebook today held its annual shareholder meeting, and the group approved the formation of a new class of voting shares that will keep CEO Mark Zuckerberg …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Twitter acquires Magic Pony Technology, a London-based company that uses machine learning to identify features in and enhance imagery; sources: deal worth $150M  —  Twitter today is taking another step to build up its machine learning muscle, and also potentially to improve how it delivers photos …

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More News

Devindra Hardawar / Engadget:

Earlier Picks

Wall Street Journal:
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet: