Techmeme
May 3, 2019, 3:30 PM

Top News

Mike Dudas / The Block:
Report: Facebook seeks ~$1B from financial firms and e-commerce sites to back its stablecoin as it readies its payments network and rewards system for users  —  - Facebook is planning to launch a full payments network (rather than just remittances) and in discussions with payment networks Visa …
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
A look at Dara Khosrowshahi's tenure as Uber prepares to go public; source: CEO decided Travis Kalanick isn't welcome on the NYSE balcony for next week's IPO  —  The C.E.O. wants to prove that the start-up has evolved past a raucous, and profligate, tech-bro culture.  But Uber's past is simply not that far gone.
Jason Del Rey / Vox:
An oral history of Amazon Prime, the internet's most successful membership program with 100M+ members worldwide and one of the main reasons behind Amazon's rise  —  An oral history of the subscription service that changed online shopping forever.  —  It's easy to forget now, but Amazon wasn't always the king of online shopping.
David Singleton / Stripe Blog:
Stripe says its fifth engineering hub will be remote, to situate product development closer to customers, and it will hire 100+ remote engineers in 2019  —  Stripe has engineering hubs in San Francisco, Seattle, Dublin, and Singapore.  We are establishing a fifth hub that is less traditional but no less important: Remote.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: SoftBank is considering an IPO for its $100B Vision Fund and is negotiating with the sultanate of Oman for an investment of several billion in the fund  —  Vision Fund staff hustles to keep up with frantic pace of deal making by CEO Masayoshi Son  —  SoftBank Group Corp …
Chris Zacharias:
A group of YouTube engineers warned IE6 users ten years ago, without permission, that the browser would not be supported, contributing to its demise  —  The bittersweet consequence of YouTube's incredible growth is that so many stories will be lost underneath all of the layers of new paint.
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Sources: Facebook told FTC it's ready for more privacy oversight like quarterly privacy safeguards reports approved by CEO, review of new products before launch  —  The concessions could accompany a multi-billion dollar fine from the Federal Trade Commission, which opened its probe last year.
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft announces Azure SQL Database Edge, which will run on compute-constrained devices, and new AI, mixed reality, and IoT capabilities powered by Azure  —  A couple days ahead of Build 2019, Microsoft is showcasing some new AI, MR, IoT and blockchain capabilities powered by Azure …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTube says it will make all of its original content free this fall in a strategy that its CBO says is in opposition to what other media companies are doing  —  - YouTube Renews Kevin Hart Comedy Series, Sets Maluma and Paris Hilton Documentaries, Lollapalooza Live-Streaming Deal
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Dark web marketplace Wall Street Market, whose admins exit-scammed users of $14.2M+ in cryptocurrency, seized by German police and other international agencies  —  Wall Street Market seized by law enforcement agencies from Germany, the US, the Netherlands, and Romania.
Mijente:
Document from May 2017 shows ICE used Palantir's software to target and arrest parents and other relatives of unaccompanied minors crossing the US-Mexico border  —  The data-mining firm Palantir played a key role in federal immigration efforts to target and arrest family members of children crossing …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify spotted testing “Your Daily Drive,” a personalized playlist featuring short podcast episodes mixed in with curated music, to positive initial reactions  —  Spotify was recently spotted testing a new personalized playlist — the first one to mix music and podcasts, customized to user's musical tastes.

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Earlier Picks

Paris Martineau / Wired:
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Wall Street Journal:
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Bloomberg: