Techmeme
July 12, 2019, 7:25 PM

Top News

Emily Glazer / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: in a 3-2 vote, FTC commissioners have approved a record $5B settlement with Facebook over the company's privacy violations  —  FTC commissioners broke along party lines, 3-2, with the Republican majority lining up to support the pact while Democratic commissioners objected
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
Trump says cryptocurrencies including Facebook's Libra are “not money”, need to be regulated, citing their high volatility and facilitation of unlawful behavior  —  Just hours after a “social media summit,” the president's Twitter account posted a thread aimed at, of all things, cryptocurrency.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Amazon is developing an Echo speaker with improved audio quality to rival Sonos, HomePod, for release next year, and ramping up work on its home robot  —  - Echo speaker to include improved audio to rival Sonos, HomePod  — Wheeled robot, codenamed ‘Vesta,’ can be summoned by voice
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft, after an outcry by many of its reseller partners, now says it will not charge them for internal use of the company's products and services  —  Microsoft is not going to eliminate internal use rights for partners who've been using software obtained as part of Microsoft's partner-program benefits …
Caroline Haskins / VICE:
User manual for Palantir Gotham software, obtained via a FOIA request, shows the amount of information law enforcement can quickly access about any individual  —  Motherboard obtained a Palantir user manual through a public records request, and it gives unprecedented insight into how the company logs and tracks individuals.
Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch:
Bird CEO says the company makes $1.27/ride on its new Bird Zero scooters, which make up 75% of the fleet, says $100M loss was a one-time accounting write-off  —  Bird has positive unit economics, CEO Travis VanderZanden said Friday in fiery response to a report from The Information …
Wolfie Zhao / CoinDesk:
Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitpoint says it was hacked for $32M in crypto assets, of which $23M belonged to its customers  —  Bitpoint, a licensed cryptocurrency exchange based in Japan, has been hacked for $32 million in crypto assets.  —  According to a CoinDesk Japan report on Friday …
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Ford and Volkswagen to expand their alliance to include autonomous vehicles; VW will invest $2.6B in Argo AI, the autonomous vehicle startup backed by Ford  —  VW will invest $2.6 billion in Argo AI, the Pittsburgh based autonomous vehicle startup backed by Ford
Naomi Nix / Bloomberg:
US Court of Federal Claims dismisses Oracle's complaint, clearing the way for the Pentagon to award a $10B cloud contract to Amazon or Microsoft  —  Oracle Corp. lost its legal challenge to the Pentagon's $10 billion cloud contract on Friday after a Federal Claims Court judge dismissed …
Isabelle Kirkwood / BetaKit:
Aspen Technology acquires Canadian startup Mnubo, which uses AI for IoT data analytics, for CAD$102  —  Mnubo, a Montreal-based Internet of Things (IoT) and AI company, has been acquired by Aspen Technology (AspenTech), an asset optimization software firm, for $102 million CAD.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
YouTube unveils new ways for creators to make money, including Super Stickers for chats in livestreams and premieres and paid levels for Channel Memberships  —  YouTube is rolling out more ways for its creators to engage fans and generate revenue, the company announced today the VidCon event in Anaheim, California.

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
Do you need a Zoho Partner?  Here's why working with one can benefit you.  —  Zoho offers over 60 applications, each one built for a unique use case.  From sales and marketing to finance, HR, and customer support …
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.

Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:
Open Model Wars + Claire Stapleton's Dishy Google Memoir + Substack's Slop Fight
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.
Great Chat:
Tech's short-term era
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Access:
Meet the most AI-pilled CEO on Earth
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Basis's Matt Harpe: Why AI Won't Replace Accountants — It'll Make Them Richer
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Lucas Shaw on Warner Bros' Limbo, Netflix's Anxiety, and Hollywood's Sort-of Comeback
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:25 PM ET, July 12, 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.

More News

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

Earlier Picks

Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Tom Simonite / Wired:
The Keyword:
Todd Bishop / GeekWire: