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January 21, 2019, 6:10 AM
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Top News

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook to launch Community Actions, a News Feed petition feature for users to tag government agencies and officials and advocate for changes, on Monday  —  Gather a mob and Facebook will now let you make political demands.  Tomorrow Facebook will encounter a slew of fresh complexities …
James Cook / Telegraph:
Uber is hiring for a new Micromobility Robotics team to develop autonomous scooters and bikes that can drive themselves to reach customers and charging points  —  Uber is hiring engineers to develop electric scooters and bicycles which can drive themselves around cities in order to reach customers and charging points.
Matt Binder / Mashable:
Google Maps rolls out ability to see user-reported speed traps via small camera icons, in North America, UK, Australia, Russia, Brazil, India, and Indonesia  —  Drivers will soon have an extra set of eyes on the road, courtesy of Google.  —  Google's navigation app, Google Maps …
Alex Sherman / CNBC:
SEC filing: Disney lost $1B+ from streaming in its 2018 fiscal year, with a $580M loss attributed to its stake in Hulu and $469M to ownership of BAMtech  —  - Disney's stake in Hulu and its ownership of BAMtech led to a loss of more than $1 billion in the latest fiscal year.
See also Mediagazer
Emily Bell / Columbia Journalism Review:
Facebook's journalism funding does not guarantee the success of high-quality reporting on its platform, which would obviate the need for such cash infusions  —  At some point over the past year, anyone connected with journalism, its present woes, or concerns over its future probably found themselves in a room with a Facebook executive.
See also Mediagazer
James Ball / Columbia Journalism Review:
Tech companies funding journalism projects deepens their codependence and implies the media is the exception that should be protected from tech's disruption
Kate Clark / TechCrunch:
Knock, a home trade-in platform started by Trulia veterans, has raised $400M Series B in equity and debt financing led by Foundry Group  —  Home trade-in platform Knock has brought in a $400 million investment to accelerate a national expansion and double its 100-person headcount.
Dan Rys / Billboard:
Profile of Audiomack, which started as a mixtape hosting site and now has a popular free music streaming service with 1.5M users, up from 400K a year ago  —  “We're not intent on becoming Spotify.  We're not trying to become Apple Music," says co-founder and CMO Dave Ponte.
See also Mediagazer
Sam Byford / The Verge:
Video of a purported Google Pixel 3 Lite shows a phone with a plastic case, 3.5mm headphone jack, 5.56" 2220x1080 LCD display, and Snapdragon 670 CPU  —  It wouldn't be a new Pixel without a massive leak  —  At this point it may be a tradition that new Google phones show up in unboxing videos …
Wall Street Journal:
A Japanese hotel that opened in 2015 as the “world's first robot hotel” has fired most of its robots after they frustrated guests and made more work for staff  —  The robot revolution will have to wait at the Henn na Hotel in Japan, which is laying off low-performing droids
David Gelles / New York Times:
Q&A with Hadi Partovi on starting Code.org, working on IE at Microsoft, what he is looking for in startup founders, and teaching computer science in schools  —  The founder and chief executive of Code.org, who was born in Iran, says computer science is a “foundational skill,” …
Biz Carson / Forbes:
Profile of angel investor and Code.org co-founder Ali Partovi, who now manages Neo, a fund that matches talented young engineers with tech industry veterans

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From Mediagazer

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Arkansas PBS severs ties with the PBS network, the first state public TV system to do so since Congress cut CPB funds, citing the annual $2M+ membership cost

Financial Times:
OpenAI hopes the Disney deal boosts Sora, which has high costs and limited traction; Sensor Tower: users average 13 minutes per day on Sora vs. 90 on TikTok

Sam Roberts / New York Times:
Arthur L. Carter, who started a Connecticut newspaper in 1981, bought and sold The Nation, and founded the New York Observer in 1987, has died at 93

More News

Nicole Perlroth / New York Times:
DNC says in court filing that it was a target of a failed spearphishing campaign after the midterms; researchers: the campaign resembled Russia-linked attacks

Earlier Picks

Alex Heath / Cheddar:
Sources: Snap fires security chief over secret relationship with a consultant and pushes out his boss, the head of HR, amid multiple departures in recent months
Julia Reda:
EU's copyright reform with “link tax” and “upload filters” suffers a setback as 11 member states vote against the proposal, making adoption in May less likely
Financial Times:
Sources: Spotify plans to launch a ~$100 voice-controlled in-car music player with preset buttons that correspond to Spotify playlists later this year
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