Techmeme
August 12, 2019, 5:10 PM

Top News

Ursula Perano / Axios:
WordPress.com owner Automattic says it will buy Tumblr from Verizon, taking on ~200 staffers, and will keep the porn ban; source: it sold for “well below” $20M  —  Verizon is set to sell the social network Tumblr to Automattic Inc, the owner of blog site and publishing tool Wordpress, the Wall Street Journal reports.
New York Times:
How YouTube radicalized Brazil, diverting users to conspiracy and far-right channels, elevating Bolsonaro's party, and possibly creating a public health crisis  —  NITERÓI, Brazil — When Matheus Dominguez was 16, YouTube recommended a video that changed his life.
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Sources: Facebook halted acquisition talks with Houseparty late last year due to antitrust concerns and began internal changes to make itself harder to break up  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Senator Elizabeth Warren has called for the breakup of big tech companies like Facebook.
Steve Dent / Engadget:
Samsung has unveiled ISOCELL Bright HMX, a 108MP smartphone camera sensor developed in collaboration with Xiaomi, one of the largest ever at 1/1.33-inches  —  With the smartphone megapixel camera wars raging on, Samsung has fired a significant shot.  It unveiled a 108-megapixel smartphone …
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
Attentive raises $40M Series B led by Sequoia for its mobile messaging tools for retailers  —  Attentive, a startup helping retailers personalize their mobile messages, is announcing that it has raised $40 million in Series B funding.  —  The startup was founded by Brian Long and Andrew Jones …
More: FinSMEs and Attentive
Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:
AI-powered search company Lucidworks raises $100M from investors including Francisco Partners and TPG Sixth Street Partners, following last year's $50M Series E  —  AI-powered search venture Lucidworks has raised $100 million from Francisco Partners and TPG Sixth Street Partners …
Wall Street Journal:
The FBI is seeking an early alerting tool that scans public data from social media to monitor threats to the US, which may violate Facebook and Twitter policies  —  Agency solicits vendor proposals to collect data from Facebook, other social media to head off safety threats
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Roblox says it has 2M+ game creators worldwide who are on track to earn $100M in 2019, debuts a Developer Marketplace for creators' development assets and tools  —  A week after gaming platform Roblox announced its new milestone of 100 million monthly users — topping Minecraft …
Janko Roettgers / Variety:
Light Field Lab raises $28M Series A with Samsung Ventures, Comcast, and others investing, to start building modular holographic displays for commercial venues  —  Holographic display startup Light Field Lab has raised a $28 million Series A round of funding led by Bosch Venture Capital and Taiwania Capital.
Stewart Clarke / Variety:
French regulators approve a plan by the country's heavyweight broadcasters to launch Salto, a joint streaming service expected in Q1 2020, to battle Netflix  —  Amazon and Netflix are soon to get some Gallic competition from Team France.  French regulators gave the green light Monday to plans …

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More News

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Earlier Picks

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Jon Fingas / Engadget: