Techmeme: New Orleans declares state of emergency after the city was hit by a cyberattack on Friday, says it has not yet found evidence that data was compromised (New Orleans Times-Picayune)

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December 15, 2019, 5:55 PM

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New Orleans Times-Picayune:

New Orleans declares state of emergency after the city was hit by a cyberattack on Friday, says it has not yet found evidence that data was compromised — Collin Arnold, the Director of the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, speaks during the press conference …

Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg:

Palantir wins a one year $111M contract to connect US Army's operations systems into a single dashboard; Palantir reportedly took over Project Maven — - Company beats Microsoft, Ernst & Young, Accenture, Deloitte — Peter Thiel-backed company is also working on Project Maven

More: Beyond Search. Tweets: @blmohr, @jasonlk, and @impcapital

Tom Simonite / Wired:

Researchers: deep learning, which led to great advances in AI over the past decade, is nearing its limits and new approaches are needed for further progress — Leaders in artificial intelligence warn that progress is slowing, big challenges remain, and simply throwing more computers at a problem isn't sustainable.

More: Wired and MIT Technology Review

Tweets: @wired, @alessianigretti, @juansequeda, and @joemckendrick

Reuters:

Argo AI CEO says the company plans to charge per mile for using its autonomous tech in commercial vehicles; sources: Ford and VW each own around 40% of Argo AI — PITTSBURGH/DETROIT (Reuters) - Sky's the limit optimism about self-driving cars is giving way to tougher questions …

Amy X. Wang / Rolling Stone:

Music streaming subscription prices have remained flat for a decade, amid competition from tech giants like Apple that can operate their music arms at a loss — The price of music streaming has stayed flat for a decade, but not because tech companies are generous

More: Applied Science. Tweets: @trengriffin, @perreau, @jessicalessin, @brianmcc, @johnwilson, and @paulkrugman

Ian Allison / CoinDesk:

Australian Securities Exchange is working with Digital Asset to convert part of its settlement process to blockchain, invests in the startup's $35M Series C — Digital Asset (DA) has raised $35 million in Series C funding, signaling a comeback for the enterprise blockchain startup a year …

More: TokenPost and The Block. Tweets: @coindesk

Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:

Airbnb rival WhyHotel, which operates temporary hotels out of unrented luxury apartment buildings, raises $20M Series B, bringing total raised to $35M — Airbnb has emerged as the single greatest disruptor of the $500 billion hotel industry over the past decade.

More: PR Newswire, PitchBook, Technical.ly DC, Washington …, AmericanInno, PhocusWire, and FinSMEs

Brian Merchant / Harper's Magazine:

A look at the rise of murder-for-hire marketplaces on the dark web, the vast majority of which are schemes to pilfer money from gullible users — The dark world of online murder markets — On a sunny July day in 2018, Alexis Stern was sitting behind the wheel of the red Ford Fusion …

More: Dill & Fennel Newsletter. Tweets: @harpers, @adamshermanesq, @davidparis, @bcmerchant, @craigmod, and @codinghorror

Business Wire:

Imply, a real-time analytics company, raises $30M in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz's Late Stage Venture Fund, bringing its total funding to $45.3M — Andreessen Horowitz-backed firm plans to aggressively expand as demand for Apache Druid (incubating) - based solution grows

More: Imply, SiliconANGLE, Business Insider, FinSMEs, and Pulse 2.0. Tweets: @implydata

Jonathan Vanian / Fortune:

Q&A with Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins about its new business line - standalone networking chips to win big datacenter clients like Facebook and Microsoft — Cisco is best known for selling routers and switches, but now the networking giant is expanding into the highly-competitive business of selling computer chips.

More: The Register, Network World, Wall Street Journal, FierceTelecom, TechRadar.com, Silicon Valley Business …, Forbes, Computer Business Review, Data Center Knowledge, SiliconANGLE, and ZDNet. Tweets: @fortunemagazine

Michelai Graham / Technical.ly DC:

Arcadia, an app that can help US consumers lower their electricity bills by connecting their accounts to clean energy options, raises $30M Series C led by G2VP — D.C.-based Arcadia has closed a $30 million Series C funding round. — The renewable energy tech company …

More: Greentech Media and FinSMEs

The Economic Times:

Flipkart and Walmart invest in Ninjacart, a Bangalore-based fresh produce supply chain startup; sources had said earlier that Walmart could invest up to $50M — India's largest online retailer, Flipkart, and its US-based parent entity Walmart have jointly invested an undisclosed sum …

More: The Indian Express, Entrepreneur, The Financial Express, Firstpost, Moneycontrol, Business Insider, Livemint, The Hindu BusinessLine, YourStory.com, PYMNTS.com, Inc42 Media, and Quartz

Tweets: @ninjacart and @investindia

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From Mediagazer

CNN:

A list of times the Trump administration tested the limits of the First Amendment during his second term, stoking alarm among civil rights experts and critics

Paul Glynn / BBC:

HarperCollins UK drops children's author and comedian David Walliams following allegations of inappropriate behavior toward young women

Robert D. McFadden / New York Times:

Lou Cannon, a veteran Washington Post reporter who wrote several influential biographies of Ronald Reagan, has died at 92

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More News

Michael Hytha / Bloomberg:

China-based autonomous air taxi company EHang closed at $12.49 in its first day of trading on Thursday, down one cent from its US IPO price after raising $40M

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

Carsome, a Malaysia-based marketplace for trading used cars, raises $50M Series C from MUFG Innovation Partners and others to grow in Southeast Asian markets

More: NST Online, The Business Times, KrASIA, and DealStreetAsia

Zen Soo / South China Morning Post:

Grab says that food and financial services, which have better margins than ride-hailing, now generate more than 50% of its gross merchandise volume

Tweets: @trengriffin

Alex Wellerstein / Restricted Data:

Creator of NUKEMAP, which lets users visualize effects of nuclear explosions, explains why it isn't using Google Maps anymore, citing API stagnation and pricing

More: 9to5Google, The Verge, and iPhone in Canada Blog

Tweets: @wellerstein, @dancow, and @carnage4life

Simone Stolzoff / The Atlantic:

A graduate of Slack's Next Chapter initiative, which helps former prison inmates land tech jobs, recounts how he managed to land a full-time job at the company

Tweets: @csinschools, @andrewnebus, @sameerpatel, @ckinstitute, @gregghoush, @tlm, @simonestolzoff, and @theatlantic. Thanks:@simonestolzoff

Financial Times:

Fintech startups in Asia are proving to be formidable competitors to traditional banks, offering a slew of financial services, but many are bleeding cash

Tweets: @tonyw, @cristinagberta, @anandaramsanjay, @trengriffin, @mohossain, and @financialtimes

Earlier Picks

Will Knight / Wired:

China's AI unicorns like Megvii, which thrived on government contracts for facial recognition, are now facing challenges amid US sanctions and cheaper tech

Tweets: @scottthurm, @ealmirall, @psb_dc, @willknight, and @privacyproject

Kane Wu / Reuters:

In China, investors and bankers say SoftBank's involvement, once a sign of promising prospects, is now viewed as a red flag that a company was likely overvalued

Anil Dash:

Instagram's limit of allowing one web link for users as a “Link in Bio” is a slow knife - a subtle, pervasive attempt to kill the open web

Tweets: @mimosaishere and @rdw0409

Jeff John Roberts / Fortune:

Researchers claim they used 3D masks and photos to deceive facial recognition systems used by Alipay, WeChat Pay, Schiphol Airport, and train stations in China

More: The Verge, International Business Times, Gizmodo, and infosecurity-magazine.com

Tweets: @briansolis, @boycotthegemony, @privacyproject, @bruno_j_navarro, and @jeffjohnroberts

Amanda Mull / The Atlantic:

How the concept of free shipping forces small e-commerce businesses to eat the cost of shipping, as large sellers like Amazon do so at scale

Tweets: @went1955, @yalesom, @jmilchen, @j_chien, @acperling, @lingerie_addict, and @amandamull

Michael Sheetz / CNBC:

Morgan Stanley estimates Amazon is delivering half of its US packages, will soon pass UPS and FedEx in total volume, at a current rate of 2.5B packages a year

More: The Verge, TechSpot, GeekWire, Android Central, and PYMNTS.com

Tweets: @ericjhonsa, @cryptonetwealth, @craigmod, and @cmroberson06