Techmeme
May 4, 2018, 8:50 PM

Top News

Sankalp Phartiyal / Reuters:
Sources: Flipkart board approved in-principle to engaging Walmart on ~$15B bid with Alphabet investing too; Amazon bid unlikely to win due to competitive issues  —  MUMBAI/BENGALURU/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart's board is yet to finalize a deal to sell a controlling stake …
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann postpones Vine successor v2 indefinitely, citing need for funding, logistical issues conflicting with early-stage startup he runs  —  Citing funding and logistical issues  —  Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann announced today that his planned sequel to the popular …
Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
Sources: Facebook has been conducting market research to determine whether an ad-free subscription-based version would spur more people to join the network  —  - Internal debate whether users will pay to avoid advertisments  — Data-privacy crisis forces company to seek to regain trust
Linda Sui / Strategy Analytics:
Analysis: 345M smartphones shipped in Q1 2018, down 2.4% YoY; iPhone X was world's best-selling smartphone with 16M units shipped this quarter  —  According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics Smartphone Model Tracker (SMT) service, global smartphone shipments reached 345 million units in Q1 2018.
David McCabe / Axios:
Starting July 10, Google will require people buying ads related to candidates in US federal elections to be US citizens or lawful permanent residents  —  People buying Google ads related to candidates in U.S. federal elections will have to prove they are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents beginning July 10, the company says.
Charlie Savage / New York Times:
US Office of the Director of National Intelligence report: NSA collected 534M metadata records from US telecommunications providers in 2017, up 3x from 2016  —  WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency vacuumed up more than 534 million records of phone calls and text messages …
Sherri L. Smith / Tom's Guide:
Lenovo Mirage Solo review: a great wireless, standalone VR experience with Daydream WorldSense tech and 110° FoV but less content and 2x as pricey as Oculus Go  —  For a while now, there have been limitations on what you could do in virtual reality.  You could walk around the room, but you were tethered to a PC.
Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed:
GoDaddy takes down Richard Spencer's website altright.com, says it has “encouraged and promoted violence in a direct and threatening manner”  —  Richard Spencer speaking at the Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts on Oct. 19, 2017, in Gainesville, Florida.  —  Joe Raedle / Getty Images
Becky Quick / CNBC:
Ahead of annual shareholders meeting, Berkshire Hathaway reveals it bought 75M shares of Apple, adding to the 165.3M shares it already owned at the end of 2017  —  - In the first quarter, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway bought an astounding 75 million shares of Apple.

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