Techmeme
February 5, 2020, 12:05 PM

Top News

Peter Kafka / Vox:
Spotify will buy The Ringer, the podcast-centric media company run and owned by Bill Simmons, and plans to hire Simmons and his approximately 90 employees  —  The Ringer CEO Bill Simmons in 2015 |  Photo by Mike Windle/Getty Images for Vanity Fair  —  It's the fourth podcast deal Spotify has done in a year.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Spotify reports Q4 results: 271M total MAUs, up 31% YoY, as paying users rise 29% YoY to 124M; overall revenue was $2B, up 24% YoY; stock down 4%+  —  Streaming music now accounts for more than 80% of all music consumption in key markets like the US, and one of the big leaders in the field is reaping some of the rewards.
Charlie Warzel / New York Times:
Shadow's Iowa failure was a dangerous combination of techno-utopianism and laziness, which led to slapdash software engineering, procurement, and deployment  —  Democrats desperately need to win the internet to beat Trump.  Their first big test was a massive failure.  —  Mr. Warzel is an opinion writer at large.
@rabble:
HuffPost:
Nicholas Thompson / Wired:
LinkedIn says CEO Jeff Weiner is stepping down in June after 11 years in the role, becoming executive chairman, to be replaced by SVP of Product Ryan Roslansky  —  After 11 steady years as the CEO of the professional networking company, Weiner is yielding the reins to deputy Ryan Roslansky.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Amid coronavirus fears, ZTE cancels its MWC 2020 press conference; LG Electronics says it is withdrawing from exhibiting and participating in the Barcelona expo  —  The second big company to cancel its MWC appearance  —  LG Electronics, the division of LG Corporation responsible for mobile phones …
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Researchers discover a now patched vulnerability in Philips Hue smart light bulbs that could have let hackers infiltrate users' home or corporate networks  —  Might want to check if you've got firmware 1935144040  —  Four years ago, security researchers showed how a flying drone could hack …
Emily McCormick / Yahoo Finance:
Twitter:
Twitter says users “may not deceptively share synthetic or manipulated media” likely to cause harm; such tweets will be labeled or removed  —  It's our responsibility to create rules on Twitter that are fair and set clear expectations for everyone on our service.
Alfred Ng / CNET:
Controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI says YouTube served a cease-and-desist letter over photo scraping, following Twitter's letter in January  —  Google and YouTube have sent a cease-and-desist letter to Clearview AI, the facial recognition company that has been scraping billions …
Cameron Faulkner / The Verge:
Rockstar Games says co-founder Dan Houser is leaving in March, after taking a break since spring 2019; Houser co-founded Rockstar in 1998 with his brother Sam  —  He touched every franchise it worked on  —  Dan Houser, co-founder of Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar Games, will leave the company in March.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Researcher details a backdoor in Huawei-owned HiSilicon chips used in millions of smart devices, including security cameras, that has been active since 2013  —  Researcher said he did not notify HiSilicon due to a lack of trust in the hardware vendor to adequately fix the issue.
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft reorganizes its Windows software and hardware teams into one group, called Devices + Windows and led by Panos Panay, amid other reshuffling  —  It's reorg day in Microsoft's Experiences and Devices unit.  Here's what's happening, including what's happening with Windows client and Surface.
Sebastian Sinclair / CoinDesk:
Transparent Financial Systems, a Seattle-based startup developing a real-time cryptographic settlement network, raises $14M+ Series A led by Pantera Capital  —  Transparent Financial Systems, a Seattle-based startup developing a real-time “cryptographic settlement” network …
More: GeekWire
Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:
Sendoso, which helps companies send customized physical gifts to clients at scale for a monthly fee, raises $40M Series B led by Oak HC/FT Partners  —  Email is garbage and we're all buried in the stuff.  Actually getting someone's attention given the constraints that digital missives present is difficult.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Instagram generated ~$20B in advertising revenue in 2019, making up more than a quarter of Facebook's revenue  —  - Unit brought in about $20 billion in 2019, people familiar say  — Photo-sharing app has gained in importance since 2012 purchase

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