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Techmeme
December 13, 2018, 2:50 PM
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Top News

Ina Fried / Axios:
Apple announces a $1B Austin campus initially for 5,000 workers, new offices in Seattle, San Diego, and Culver City, and expansions in several other US cities  —  Apple plans to build a new $1 billion campus in Austin, Texas, adding thousands of jobs, while also setting up new large offices in Seattle …
Arielle Pardes / Wired:
Postmates announces Serve, an autonomous rover launching soon in LA, and says it now averages 4M deliveries per month in 550+ cities  —  HANGING ON THE wall of Postmates' stealth R&D laboratory, there's a framed photo of an iconic scene from Star Wars, Luke Skywalker bent down beside R2D2.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Robinhood launches checking and savings accounts in the US with a 3% interest rate and no minimum balance or fees for overdrafts or foreign transactions  —  Robinhood is undercutting the big banks by forgoing brick-and-mortar branches with its new zero-fee checking and savings account features.
Corbin Davenport / Android Police:
Amazon starts selling the Chromecast Ultra and third-gen Chromecast, nearly a year after it promised to sell Chromecast devices again  —  Amazon pulled the Chromecast from its online store in 2015, after it instated a new rule that only streaming devices that supported Prime Video could be sold.
Ryan Randazzo / Arizona Republic:
Police in Chandler, AZ have documented 20+ incidents in the past two years where people vandalized Waymo's autonomous vehicles and harassed their test drivers  —  Police have responded to dozens of calls regarding people threatening and harassing Waymo vans.  —  CONNECT
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
YouTube's annual Rewind video received 10M dislikes in about eight days, overtaking Justin Bieber's Baby to be the most disliked video  —  Creators help explain why  —  To say that this year's YouTube Rewind didn't go over well with the YouTube community would be quite an understatement.
Frank Chaparro / The Block:
Sources: stablecoin project Basis, backed by Bain Capital, GV, and a16z, is closing due to regulatory issues and returning most of the $133M capital raised  —  Basis, one of the most well-known stablecoin projects, is shutting down and returning nearly all capital raised to investors.
Amy Gesenhues / Marketing Land:
Facebook says it is rolling out Watch globally on desktop and Facebook Lite and expands availability of Ad Breaks, 15-second in-stream ads, to 14 more markets  —  Says more than 75 million daily Watch visitors spend, on average, more than 20 minutes on the video platform.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Brave ad-blocking browser moves to Chromium codebase, now supports Chrome extensions but says it won't integrate any Google-based features  —  Brave replaces ambitious Muon interface and goes full Chromium.  Gets 22 percent speed boost in the process.  —  Privacy-focused browser Brave …
J. David Goodman / New York Times:
How Amazon is trying to quell opposition to its new NYC offices by hiring well-connected lobbyists and taking to the streets to hear residents' concerns  —  Amazon is trying to quell rising opposition to its plan for offices in New York, hiring well-connected lobbyists to make its case …
Joshua Goldman / CNET:
Samsung upgrades its two-in-one Notebook 9 Pen with a new 15-inch option, updated S Pen, and a promise of 15 hours of battery life, coming in 2019  —  With its updated Notebook 9 Pen two-in-one laptop, Samsung is targeting creative professionals who want the flexibility of both a laptop …
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
South African fintech startup Jumo, which specializes in microloans, savings, and insurance, adds $12.5M to $52M round from September as it expands into Asia  —  Months after a big round, African fintech startup Jumo has pulled in a fresh $12.5 million to add more fuel for its expansion into Asia Pacific.
More: jumo.world
Gillian Brockell / Washington Post:
Tech companies should automatically turn off irrelevant ads based on info users share, such as ads for baby gear when a pregnant person has a stillborn child  —  Dear Tech Companies:  —  I know you knew I was pregnant.  It's my fault, I just couldn't resist those Instagram hashtags — #30weekspregnant, #babybump.
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Square says Appointments, its service for SMBs like salons to schedule appointments and take payments in advance, will now integrate with Instagram and Google  —  Square is perhaps better known for its core payments product that allows any merchant to accept card payments through a mobile device.
Kate Clark / TechCrunch:
Online design marketplace Minted, which sells stationery, art, and home decor, raises $208M Series E led by Permira, bringing total raised to $300M  —  Minted, a company we've been covering on this site for a decade-plus, plans to double down on its wholesale and licensing business …

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:50 PM ET, December 13, 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.

From Mediagazer

Upmanyu Trivedi / Bloomberg:
The UK Competition and Markets Authority clears Paramount's takeover of WBD, saying “after the merger, Paramount will continue to face sufficient competition”

The Wrap:
The FCC votes to repeal the national broadcast ownership cap and replace it with a case-by-case review, approving the measure by a 2-1 margin

Lucas Manfredi / The Wrap:
WBD reports Q2 revenue down 11% YoY to $8.72B, below $9.21B est., net income down 91%, ad revenue down 22%, content revenue down 26%, streaming revenue up 10%

More News

New York Times:
Inside France's plan to teach children about the downsides of internet, including spotting trustworthy info on Twitter, with 30,000 teachers trained per year
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
How making products easier to use can steer users toward unhealthy behaviors, like viewing overly extreme content that autoplays, or lead to security breaches

Earlier Picks

Holly Brockwell / Gizmodo UK:
Source: Samsung Galaxy S10 series will be unveiled Feb. 20, with UK prices starting at £669 for the S10 Lite, £799 for the 6.1-inch model, and £899 for the S10+
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
SEC settles with the former CEO and COO of AriseBank, which it sued in January for alleged fraud and issuing unregistered securities during an ICO, for $2.7M+
Kyle Orland / Ars Technica:
Epic Games, which makes Fortnite, unveils a free SDK, rolling out in 2019, to help developers build cross-platform games that include login and social elements
Peter Bright / Ars Technica:
Intel unveils 10nm Sunny Cove architecture, built to execute more instructions in parallel with lower latency, better cryptography support, and more
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