Techmeme: Automotive company Lear acquires connected-car software maker Xevo, which runs an in-car e-commerce platform called Xevo Market, for $320M (Taylor Soper/GeekWire)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News

April 7, 2019, 11:25 PM

Top News

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

With Snap Kit, Snap moves on from being a “Camera company” and becomes a camera platform, enabling developers to embed, not copy, its best features — Evan Spiegel has finally found a way to fight back against Mark Zuckerberg's army of clones. For 2.5 years, Snapchat foolishly tried …

Tweets: @db, @joshconstine, @techcrunch, and @joshconstine. Thanks:@joshconstine

Jason Schreier / Kotaku:

Following Anthem's rough launch, current and former BioWare employees say its development was hampered by EA's Frostbite engine and poor leadership — It wasn't even supposed to be called Anthem. Just days before the annual E3 convention in June of 2017, when the storied studio BioWare …

More: BioWare Blog, Gamasutra, PC Gamer, Forbes, Polygon, PC Gamer, Engadget, TechSpot, The Next Web, GamesIndustry.biz, and VG247

Tweets: @jasonschreier, @bioware, @jasonschreier, @kingcurrythundr, @ckunzelman, @drexl_raz, @sanatanamishra, @apunkbird, @edzitron, @rolanberrypie, @justanavrgetree, @unheroics, @kateleth, @jessecox, @hartsman, and @adamconover

BBC:

UK whitepaper proposes “code of best practice” for how internet platforms should deal with harmful content, suggests expanding liability to tech company execs — Internet sites could be fined or blocked if they fail to tackle “online harms” such as terrorist propaganda and child abuse, under government plans.

More: Washington Post, New York Times, Bloomberg, and The Guardian

Tweets: @kyleworton, @tonyromm, @asifpatel79, @dangainor, @cjsnowdon, @indexcensorship, and @aridavidpaul

See also Mediagazer

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:

How fraud-detection services like Sift and SecureAuth use thousands of signals and opaque algorithms to generate user-trustworthiness scores — When you're logging in to a Starbucks account, booking an Airbnb or making a reservation on OpenTable, loads of information about you is crunched instantly …

Tweets: @mims, @profgalloway, @mims, @elizabeth_joh, @wsj, and @wsj

Arielle Pardes / Wired:

Founder of Change My View subreddit, which has 700K+ subscribers, launches Change A View, a site with paid moderators and some funding from Alphabet's Jigsaw — A FEW MONTHS shy of his high school graduation, Kal Turnbull came to a realization: Conversations on the internet are broken.

More: Engadget, Change A View, Inc., and Boing Boing

Tweets: @roschkekj, @jeffweiner, @mehatch, @kevinakwok, and @pardesoteric

Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:

Hands on with Android Q Beta 2: deep dive into an early version of Bubbles multitasking UI, a look at the changes to notifications and gesture navigation, more — Android's Bubbles feature can actually completely replace the notification panel. — Android Q Beta 2 is out!

Tweets: @stevesi and @benedictevans

Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:

How Waze is working with Transport for London through its Connected Citizens program, which has 900 partners, to launch the city's new Ultra Low Emission Zone — As cities look for new ways to combat congestion and toxic fumes, technology is playing an increasingly big part in the problem-solving …

Tweets: @medicalquack, @lbonesini, and @tombamonte

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:

Q&A with France's new digital minister Cédric O on regulating big tech, moderating content through a neutral central repository, tech industry in France, more — An interview with Cédric O — What happens when you're working behind the scene with French President Emmanuel Macron and you suddenly become a minister?

Tweets: @romaindillet and @techcrunch

Katie Fustich / Built In Colorado:

Cybersecurity startup deepwatch raises $23M Series A to fuel expansion and R&D, says it's grown to 130 employees and over 100 customers — On Wednesday, Denver-based deepwatch announced it has secured $23 million in a Series A funding round. The cybersecurity provider will use …

Taylor Soper / GeekWire:

Automotive company Lear acquires connected-car software maker Xevo, which runs an in-car e-commerce platform called Xevo Market, for $320M — Global automotive giant Lear today announced that it will acquire Seattle-area connected car startup Xevo for $320 million.

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

VSCO sues photo editing app PicsArt alleging false advertising and violations of its ToS, claims PicsArt reverse engineered 19 filters from VSCO — Photo-editing app-maker VSCO has filed a lawsuit against competitor PicsArt. — The suit focuses on 19 PicsArt filters that were supposedly …

More: Android Police

Sponsor Posts

Okara:

Meet Okara, the AI platform that doesn't train on your data — Chat with 30+ open-source models (Llama, Kimi, Qwen, DeepSeek) through encrypted infrastructure. Used by teams handling proprietary code and strategy.

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:

Zoho Books Launches CT600 & Final Accounts Filing for Micro-Entities in the UK — Tax compliance is the fulcrum of accounting and Zoho Books has come a long way in helping different business structures in the UK stay compliant with their tax obligations.

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.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:

OpenAI's $50 Billion Fundraise, AI Advertising Game Theory, Apple's AI Wearable Pin

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.

Hard Fork:

Will ChatGPT Ads Change OpenAI? + Amanda Askell Explains Claude's New Constitution

The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Subscribe to Hard Fork.

Access:

Home robots are coming faster than you think, with Sunday's Tony Zhao

A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.

Subscribe to Access.

The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:

An Intro to Data Centers

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.

Uncapped with Jack Altman:

Vinod Khosla and Keith Rabois from Khosla Ventures

Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.

Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Special Edition: Key findings from the Microsoft AI Diffusion Report

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.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:25 PM ET, April 7, 2019.

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

Zach Montague / New York Times:

Unsealed court documents show the Trump administration revoked Tufts student Rumeysa Ozturk's visa based on her op-ed in the Tufts Daily student paper

Sean Hollister / The Verge:

Google says replacing some article headlines with AI-generated ones is now a feature in Discover, but they can be false or fail to highlight new, relevant info

Politico:

A grand jury charged a US government contractor with violating the Espionage Act; DOJ officials say the charges stem from leaks to WaPo reporter Hannah Natanson

Upcoming Tech Events

Earnings: MSFT, META, IBM, ASML

Jan 29

IPO (expected): Ethos Technologies (Nasdaq: LIFE)

Jan 29

Earnings: AAPL, Samsung Electronics

Earnings: PYPL, AMD, NTDOY, MTCH, TTWO

Feb 4

Earnings: GOOG, UBER, QCOM, ARM, SNAP

Feb 5

Earnings: AMZN, RDDT, AFRM, RBLX, SONY

Feb 10

Earnings: HOOD, SPOT, LYFT, NET

Feb 10-14

CoinDesk Consensus Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Feb 12

Earnings: COIN, PINS, TWLO, CART, TOST

Game Developers Conference

More News

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:

Researchers: Chinese HR-focused companies have leaked over 590M resumes, many with non-public personal details, via exposed databases in the last 3 months

More: Slashdot and DataBreaches.net

Mark Murray / NBC News:

Poll: 69% of Americans use social media at least once a day, 82% believe it wastes their time, 55% think it spreads lies and falsehoods, 57% say “it divides us”

More: The Wrap and The Hill

Tweets: @mattmcgee, @getongab, @samueljscott, @twadhwa, @alasaarela, @ajitpaifcc, @omaroakes, and @patrickmoorhead

Foreign Policy:

How Huawei, once an upstart using licensed and sometimes stolen tech to undercut rivals, became a telecom infrastructure juggernaut during the 4G upgrade cycle

Tweets: @eliasgroll, @foreignpolicy, @harriszainul, @foreignpolicy, and @austinyugo

Kevin Carey / The Huffington Post:

A look at “OPMs”, companies which manage online courses for top US universities and take a 60% cut from tuition fees, which may reach $60K+ per online degree

Tweets: @rkgwork, @bluegrasscap, @ernestezeugo, @giladedelman, @zeitgeistfilm, @emilyjodell, @bleuguy, @ralphratheriled, @abbasabbasov, @ricetopher, @kevincarey1, @alexshebanow, @bethanyletiecq, and @koehrsen_will

Mike Orcutt / MIT Technology Review:

VCs invested $334M in blockchain startups in Q1 2019, well below the 2018 levels when $5.5B was raised, but in line with 2017 levels according to PitchBook data

Tweets: @nxthompson

Yogita Khatri / CoinDesk:

Cryptocurrency payments startup Celo says a16z crypto and Polychain Capital have purchased $15M and $10M respectively in the project's Celo Gold tokens

More: Celo

Earlier Picks

Julia Alexander / The Verge:

TikTok is becoming a new platform for a song to find an audience, as shown by the viral hit “Old Town Road”, which now has more than 65M streams on Spotify

Tweets: @nymag and @bafeldman

Charlie Warzel / New York Times:

Profile of CarpeDonktum, a stay-at-home dad posting highly popular pro-Trump memes and blurring the lines between viral trolling and the business of politics

Tweets: @eddiezipperer, @cwarzel, and @annehelen

Bloomberg:

As Google disbands its external AI ethics board, a look at its internal AI ethics council comprising of senior execs and led by its chief legal officer

More: The Guardian and Fox News

Tweets: @ideafaktory, @techworkersco, and @lizthegrey

Sean Hollister / The Verge:

Netflix says it pulled AirPlay support because it is technically unable to ensure a good enough user experience on 3rd party devices now getting AirPlay 2

CNBC:

After a NY Post report that Morgan Stanley offered Lyft's pre-IPO investors a short-selling product, Lyft sends a letter threatening to sue the investment bank

More: SiliconANGLE, Forbes, New York Post, The Information, and TechCrunch

Tweets: @maxjacobsedison, @alysekilleen, @cookie, @sameerpatel, @amir, @lessin, @wintonark, @thufirhawat, @jessicalessin, @jessicalessin, and @jessicalessin