Techmeme
May 13, 2019, 7:00 PM

Top News

Tucker Higgins / CNBC:
US Supreme Court rules against Apple, allowing iPhone users to sue the company for alleged App Store monopolization; Apple stock closes down 5.8%  —  KEY POINTS  — The Supreme Court, ruling 5-4, allows iPhone users to pursue their antitrust lawsuit against Apple in a case involving …
Noah Feldman / Bloomberg:
Jeffrey Dastin / Reuters:
Sources: Amazon has added machines that automate boxing up customer orders at a handful of warehouses; they pack ~700 boxes per hour, 4-5X the rate of a human  —  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc is rolling out machines to automate a job held by thousands of its workers: boxing up customer orders.
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Facebook raises pay for content moderation contractors to $22/hr in SF, NYC, DC; $20/hr in Seattle; and $18/hr in other metros; says minimum wage is not enough  —  Social-media giant says current minimum wage isn't enough in expensive areas such as Silicon Valley
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Bloomberg:
Uber's CEO, in email to staff Monday, acknowledged the rocky trading debut, noting Facebook and Amazon's initial post-IPO difficulties; stock ends day down 10%+  —  Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, in an email to staff Monday, acknowledged Uber's rocky trading debut, while at the same time saying …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Flexa launches Spedn app to let users pay for goods in physical stores with cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, ether, bitcoin cash, and the gemini dollar  —  Accepted at GameStop, Nordstrom, Whole Foods, and more  —  A new payment network called Flexa is launching today that'll let you spend cryptocurrencies in physical stores.
Leigh Cuen / CoinDesk:
Microsoft launches Ion, an open source decentralized identity tool on bitcoin blockchain; source: Ion to shift from bitcoin's testnet to mainnet later this year  —  Microsoft is launching the first decentralized infrastructure implementation by a major tech company that is built directly on the bitcoin blockchain.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
MailChimp to launch a marketing platform for SMBs and introduce four-tiered pricing, says it now has 11M customers and is on track for $700M in revenue in 2019  —  Mailchimp, a bootstrapped startup out of Atlanta, Georgia, is known best as a popular tool for organizations to manage …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify is testing its own version of Stories with a feature called Storyline, focused on letting artists share directly to their fans  —  Spotify is testing its own version of Stories — the sharing format popularized by social apps like Snapchat and Instagram and has since made its way to other apps …
Elad Gil / Elad Blog:
As online markets have grown 10X in the last two decades, more $1B-$10B+ software startups will exist, and startups can grow faster than ever  —  Over the last few years the number of people and businesses online has ballooned.  Spend on the Internet has grown rapidly as you can now reach billions …
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
VP of Apple Pay debuts a new iPhone NFC feature: tags that trigger Apple Pay purchases when tapped without needing a special app; Bird is a launch partner  —  Apple's VP of Apple Pay Jennifer Bailey today announced a new NFC feature for iPhone: special tags that trigger Apple Pay purchases when tapped …
Ian Sherr / CNET:
Chat app Discord says it now has 250M registered users and 56M MAU  —  You may never have heard of Discord, but you might soon.  —  The chat app built initially for gamers has been steadily expanding outside that world as it's increasingly used by YouTube personalities, podcasters, hackers and more.
Tweets: @domsplaying
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
Microsoft to spend $100M+ over 5 years to open its first development centers in Africa to hire engineers to work on cloud, AI tech, and more  —  Sites in Nairobi, Lagos will recruit engineers for cloud, AI  —  Microsoft Corp. plans to spend more than $100 million over five years to open …
Michael Sheetz / CNBC:
Slack updates financials, estimates revenue of $133.8M to $134.8M for the quarter ending April 30, up from $80.9M YoY, and a net loss of $39M, up from $26.3M  —  KEY POINTS  — The company brought in estimated revenue of about $134 million, with a net loss of around $39 million, for the three months ending April 30.

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Earlier Picks

Joshua Rivera / Kotaku:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch: