Techmeme: Facebook starts rolling out a “multilingual composer” that automatically translates user posts into several languages at once (Casey Newton/The Verge)

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July 1, 2016, 12:40 PM

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Jordan Golson / The Verge:

US NHTSA opens investigation into fatal accident involving Tesla's Autopilot mode; Tesla says it's the first fatality in 130M+ miles driven with Autopilot — A Tesla Model S with the Autopilot system activated was involved in a fatal crash, the first known fatality in a Tesla where Autopilot was active.

More: USA Today, Los Angeles Times, ABC News, Engadget, Electrek, Tesla Motors, CNBC, The Verge, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, Dice Insights, Nelson's Weblog, Robotics Trends, Patently Apple, Investor's Business Daily, TeslaCentral, NEWS.com.au, Tech Times, Silicon Republic, Nextgov, Dezeen, Inquirer, Brad Ideas, Forbes, Reuters, SiliconANGLE, The Mac Observer, Boing Boing, GeekWire, CNET, TechSpot, Gizmodo, Network World, The Register, ZDNet, The Hill, Tech Insider, Digital Trends, The Atlantic, ValueWalk, Quartz, Fusion, The Drum, Gizmodo, Car and Driver Blog, The Next Web, CNNMoney, CBS San Francisco, TechnoBuffalo, Guardian, Fortune, BGR, VentureBeat, Ubergizmo, Mashable, Consumerist, Slate, Business Insider, NPR, Newser, KTLA, Ars Technica UK, Silicon Valley Business …, Recode, BuzzFeed and TechCrunch

Tweets: @elonmusk, @reutersbiz, @erratarob, @laurengoode, @panzer, @amir and @panzer

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Apple in exploratory talks to acquire Tidal, Jay Z's streaming music service; Tidal held similar talks with Rhapsody last year — Sources say talks are ongoing and may not result in a deal — Apple Inc. is in exploratory talks to acquire Tidal, a streaming-music service run by rap mogul Jay Z …

More: CNNMoney, Recode, TIME, The Verge, Tech Trader Daily, Computerworld, Digital Music News, iLounge, Tech Times, tech.co, TechRadar.com, Fortune, Inquirer, Redmond Pie, ValueWalk, Mercury News, Vanity Fair, Consumerist, Business Insider, Press Association, TechSpot, Highsnobiety, International Business Times, Ubergizmo, Patently Apple, Silicon Republic, Neowin, Hollywood Life, iDownloadBlog.com, SiliconANGLE, MacDailyNews, 9to5Mac, Refinery29, MacRumors, Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check, FACT Magazine, BGR, The Drum, The Wrap, Pocketnow, PhoneDog.com, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, SlashGear, Digital Trends, BuzzFeed, Engadget, SiliconBeat, New York Times, VentureBeat, Silicon Valley Business …, TechnoBuffalo, New York Magazine, TechHive, CNET, Pocket-lint, Forbes, Daring Fireball, Cult of Mac, MacRumors, AppleInsider, The Verge, CNBC and The Next Web

Tweets: @pkafka, @readdanwrite, @nateog, @tomgara, @johnpaczkowski, @wsjd, @mgsiegler, @brendan_klink, @azi and @benedictevans

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Mikhail Larionov / Messenger Platform News:

Facebook announces 11K bots on Messenger, updates Messenger Platform with star ratings, quick reply buttons, more content types, and other features for bots — Since the launch of the Messenger Platform in April of this year, over 11,000 bots have launched.

More: Facebook, Facebook Developers, Marketing Land, Forbes, Tech Times, The Verge, MacRumors, Phandroid, Android Central, Engadget, The Next Web, SlashGear, Ubergizmo and TechCrunch. Tweets: @benedictevans

Ben Lang / Road to VR:

Google adds WebVR and VR Shell to beta and dev versions of Chrome on Android, potentially allowing all websites to be viewed in VR — Google is working to add fully immersive browsing capability to Chrome, allowing users to browse any part of the web in VR, not just those sites that are specially built for VR.

More: UploadVR, Mashable, The Verge, Engadget, PhoneDog.com, Ubergizmo, TechnoBuffalo, Tech Times, 9to5Google, Pocket-lint, Digital Trends, The Next Web, CNET and VRHeads

Dan Primack / Fortune:

Zenefits cuts its valuation from $4.5B to $2B, will let Series C investors increase stake from 11% to 25% — Zenefits, the HR software startup that has accused its founder and former CEO of regulatory impropriety, is slashing its valuation to $2 billion from $4.5 billion.

More: Wall Street Journal, diginomica, BuzzFeed, Business Insider, Bloomberg, Forbes, New York Times and TechCrunch

Tweets: @ericnewcomer, @scottmaustin, @rolfewinkler, @pmarca and @mikeisaac

Casey Newton / The Verge:

Facebook starts rolling out a “multilingual composer” that automatically translates user posts into several languages at once — You'll soon be able to post on Facebook in multiple languages using a new automatic translation feature, the company said today.

More: VentureBeat, CNET, Computerworld, ZDNet, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Next Web and Mashable

Jordan Novet / VentureBeat:

eBay starts using Google's AMP technology on its mobile site to load pages faster; around 8 million AMP pages are now live — Ecommerce company eBay today announced that it has started using the Google-led open source Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) technology for more quickly displaying webpages on end users' mobile devices.

More: eBay Newsroom, eBay Tech Blog, Search Engine Roundtable, ZDNet and Recode. Tweets: @smashingmag

Don Clark / Wall Street Journal:

Jury awards HP Enterprise $3B in damages from Oracle over 2011 Itanium case; Oracle to appeal — Legal case focused on fate of ‘Itanium’ systems — A jury in Silicon Valley on Thursday delivered a resounding victory to Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. , finding that Oracle Corp. should pay …

More: Reuters, SiliconANGLE, Bloomberg, Tech Times, The Verge, Oracle, Silicon Valley Business …, ZDNet, SlashGear, Ars Technica, Neowin, eWeek, Engadget, USA Today and Business Insider

Dan Seifert / The Verge:

Karma announces support for private networks, bills it as company's first premium feature, plans to offer more premium features in the future — Karma is a company that's built a business model around sharing internet access with others, even strangers, through its hotspot service.

More: Spread the WiFi, Business Wire, teleread.org, SlashGear, Lifehacker and Engadget. See also Mediagazer

Jeb Blount / Reuters:

Brazilian judge freezes $6.07M in Facebook bank account after WhatsApp fails to turn over messages in drug case — A court in Brazil on Thursday blocked 19.5 million reais ($6.07 million) in Facebook Inc funds after the U.S-based social networking company's WhatsApp messaging service failed …

More: Engadget, The Verge, AppleInsider, CNET, BBC, Associated Press, The Next Web, Tech Times, TechCrunch and DW.COM. Tweets: @joshconstine

Queenie Wong / Mercury News:

New Facebook feature will allow US users to create fundraisers for nonprofits, available to some users Thursday, rolling out to all in coming weeks — MENLO PARK — Looking to strike an emotional chord with potential donors, some nonprofits are turning to Facebook users to help them raise money for worthy causes.

More: Facebook, The Verge, USA Today, Mashable, CNET, Consumerist, Gizmodo, Tech Times, The Next Web, TechCrunch, SocialTimes and Fortune

Alistair Barr / Bloomberg:

Some Alphabet's “Other Bets” divisions like Verily are creating new types of stock tied to division performance to compensate and motivate employees — Plan removes ‘safety blanket’ from employees of growth units — Some staff try to return to Google to avoid riskier stock

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