Techmeme
October 22, 2019, 12:50 PM

Top News

CNBC:
Sources: SoftBank to take control of WeWork, spending $4B-$5B on new funding and existing shares in The We Company, valuing it between $7.5B and $8B  —  KEY POINTS  — Softbank to spend $4 billion to $5 billion on new equity, existing shares, sources say.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Verizon is giving away Disney+ for free for one year to all of its wireless customers on unlimited-data plans and to FiOS and 5G home internet customers  —  New Fios broadband, 5G home wireless internet customers also eligible for 12-month free offer  —  Verizon is giving away Disney Plus …
Joe Maring / Android Central:
The Pixel 4 and 4 XL support fast wireless charging on any Qi charger, unlike the Pixel 3, which needed Google's own Pixel Stand for fast charging  —  11W speeds seem to be supported on just about anything.  —  Updated October 22, 2019: So it turns out that the Pixel 4's wireless charging situation …
Nathaniel Gleicher / Facebook:
Facebook:
Joseph Cox / VICE:
Sources: MPC, pitched as a privacy-focused smartphone vendor, was run by a violent UK gang and shut down after multiple investigations into it developed  —  Crime blogger Martin Kok was assassinated while leaving a sex club.  It turned out MPC, one of his clients, was not an ordinary phone company.
Shelby Brown / CNET:
Devumi settles FTC charges that it sold fake followers and likes; cosmetics firm Sunday Riley also settles with FTC for allegedly posting fake online reviews  —  The Federal Trade Commission uncovered and stopped the misleading online marketing tactics of two different companies, it announced Monday.
Andrew Nusca / Fortune:
A look at the revival in digital music sales, which have grown from $14.3B in 2014 to $18.1B in 2018, mainly thanks to paid streaming services like Spotify  —  Imagine, for a moment, that Taylor Swift was wrong.  The reigning queen of country-tinged pop shocked fans in 2014 by abruptly …
Financial Times:
Sources: Facebook hasn't offered money to wire services Reuters and AP for being featured on its news page, as Bloomberg and Dow Jones land seven-figure deals  —  Facebook will pay millions of dollars to some publications featured on its news page but nothing to others, as its efforts to rebuild trust divide the US media sector.
vpnMentor:
Researchers find open database that leaked 179GB+ of customer, US government, and military records from Best Western's travel reservation system Autoclerk  —  Led by Noam Rotem and Ran Locar, vpnMentor's research team discovered a breach in a database belonging to Autoclerk …

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Featured Podcasts

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The $7B Startup Mapping Your Health In Just One Hour | Neko's Hjalmar Nilsonne
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The company building underwater drones for $50,000
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Sources:
Robinhood's CEO on letting AI trade your money
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
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More News

Bloomberg:
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Ionut Ilascu / BleepingComputer:
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: