Techmeme
June 29, 2018, 12:00 AM

Top News

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Sources: Amazon acquired PillPack in a deal valued at just under $1B; PillPack had been in acquisition talks with Walmart, which was outbid by Amazon  —  A week after appointing a CEO for its healthcare joint venture with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan, Amazon today announced an acquisition …
CNBC:
Amazon to acquire online pharmacy PillPack, which organizes and delivers drugs to consumers and is licensed in 50 states; PillPack has raised $117.8M in funding  —  - PillPack packages, organizes and delivers drugs.  It sends consumers packages with the specific number of medications they're supposed to take at specific times.
Chloe Aiello / CNBC:
Twitter is reorganizing its teams into groups, like engineering, instead of individual products; Kayvon Beykpour, former Periscope CEO, named head of product  —  - Ed Ho, who has been on leave since May, explained in a series of tweets his decision was based largely on an unexpected family loss.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Instagram adds the ability to add licenced songs as background music for Stories starting today in 7 countries and says it has 400M daily Stories users  —  The right music can make a boring photo or video epic, so Instagram is equipping users with a way to add popular songs to their Stories.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Niantic Labs, which helped develop Pokémon Go, says it will open the underlying AR platform, called Real World Engine, to third-party developers  —  Niantic Labs, the San Francisco-based game developer responsible for creating the massively successful augmented reality game Pokémon Go …
Inti De Ceukelaire:
Researcher: Facebook quiz maker NameTests exposed personal info of ~120M users for years, in a data leak that was fixed after the Cambridge Analytica scandal  —  Ever took a personality test on Facebook?  For years, anyone could have accessed your private information, friends, posts and photos.
Matthew Lynley / TechCrunch:
Bird officially announces $300M raise led by Sequoia Capital, its second raise in just a few months  —  And there we have it: Bird, one of the emerging massively-hyped Scooter startups, has roped in its next pile of funding by picking up another $300 million in a round led by Sequoia Capital.
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
Twitter makes its Ad Transparency Center, announced before Congressional hearings in October, available to all users  —  Twitter is unveiling the Ads Transparency Center that it announced back in October.  —  This comes as Twitter and other online platforms have faced growing political scrutiny around …
Anna Hensel / VentureBeat:
Facebook rolls out a button to show ads a Page is running, even if not targeted to the user, across Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger  —  Facebook today released a new tool that will allow users to see what advertisements a Page is running — whether or not all of those advertisements are targeted at that particular users.
Aaron Smith / Pew Research Center:
Survey of 4,594 US adults: 72% say it's likely social media firms censor opposing political views; 43% say firms support liberal views over conservative views  —  A majority of Republicans say technology firms support the views of liberals over conservatives and that social media platforms censor political viewpoints.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Sling TV raises core package price by $5 to $25/month, introduces free content and a la carte channel subscriptions  —  Sling TV, the first to deliver an over-the-top TV service aimed at cord cutters, is shaking up its business.  The company announced today it's raising the base price …
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Kroger, the US's largest supermarket chain, teams up with Nuro, a two-year-old self-driving startup, to launch driverless delivery service later this fall  —  Kroger is teaming up with Nuro, a startup founded by two veterans of Google's self-driving team  —  Kroger, the nation's largest …
Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss / Reuters:
Report: ICOs raised $13.7B in the first five months of 2018, up from $7B in 2017; only 30% of the 3,470 ICOs since 2013 closed successfully  —  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital currency sales jumped to $13.7 billion in the first five months of the year, nearly double the amount raised for the whole of 2017 …

Sponsor Posts

Clay:
Turn any GTM idea into reality  —  Clay helps GTM teams combine AI agents, enrichment, and intent data to move faster and turn insights into action.
Soxton:
AI-powered law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!
Zoho:
Why now: Building cloud infrastructure that the UAE can rely on  —  For years, the main question in the UAE was whether organizations should adopt cloud technology.  Today, cloud adoption is no longer up for debate.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:
"Engineers are becoming sorcerers" | The future of software development with OpenAI's Sherwin Wu
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Cheeky Pint:
Ben Thompson from Stratechery on AI ads, the end of SaaS, and the future of media
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
The Billionaire Button w/ Tim Wu
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Great Chat:
No one won the AI Bowl
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Big Technology Podcast:
Who's Winning The AI Race? + Software's Future — With Sridhar Ramaswamy
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:00 AM ET, June 29, 2018.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Nilay Patel / The Verge:
David Carnoy / CNET:
Pavel Alpeyev / Bloomberg:
Catalin Cimpanu / BleepingComputer: