Techmeme
February 7, 2020, 5:50 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: the Trump admin has bought access to a database tracking locations of millions of phones in the US and is using it for immigration and border control  —  Commercial database that maps movements of millions of cellphones is deployed by immigration and border authorities
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: SoftBank's Vision Fund 2 may end up raising less than half of the planned $108B, with nearly all of its capital coming from SoftBank itself  —  The new pool could end up being less than half its planned size, with nearly all of its capital coming from SoftBank itself
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Instagram has internally prototyped an Instagram Partner Program that will let IGTV creators earn money by showing ads alongside their videos  —  Instagram may finally let IGTV video makers earn money 18 months after launching the longer-form content hub.  Instagram confirms to TechCrunch …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Paystand, which is building a blockchain-based platform to make commercial B2B transactions as easy as Venmo payments are for consumers, raises $20M Series B  —  Paystand has raised $20 million to modernize commercial payments using its blockchain-based platform so that paying a corporate bill …
New York Times:
The number of reported child sexual abuse videos surged to 41M in 2019, surpassing the number of reported illicit photos; Facebook reported 85% of the total  —  In a first, videos outnumbered photos in reports to the authorities last year.  Facebook found the most imagery, the bulk of it on its Messenger app.
CNBC:
Uber's stock is up ~10% after the company announced a Q4 loss that was narrower than expected and moved its profitability forecast forward  —  - Uber's revenue growth picked up in the quarter.  — During the fourth quarter, Uber faced tighter regulations impacting its business in London and California and continued to slash costs.
Uber:
AnandTech:
64-core AMD Threadripper 3990X CPU review: great for rendering and scientific computing but has the same performance as AMD's 32-core CPU for other applications  —  The recent renaissance of AMD as the performance choice in the high-end x86 market has been great for consumers, enabling a second offering at the top-end of the market.
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Facebook says it has received 15K bug reports in 2019, awarded about $2.2M in bounties for 1,300 of them, up from ~$1.1M for 700 bugs in 2018  —  A few months ago, Facebook disclosed that apps were siphoning data from up to 9.5 million of its users.  They only found out thanks to a bug bounty submission.
Wall Street Journal:
NYSE owner Intercontinental Exchange abandons potential eBay takeover deal after a backlash from investors  —  Investors had pushed back against move to acquire e-commerce company  —  The parent company of the New York Stock Exchange abandoned its pursuit of eBay Inc. EBAY 2.36% …
Theodore Schleifer / Vox:
Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Twitter workers contributed ~$270K to the Bernie Sanders campaign, more than any other presidential candidate, in Q4 2019  —  Sanders, an avowed democratic socialist, has been highly critical of tech companies.  Their employees don't seem to mind.

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Is AI just hype?  —  Find out how top enterprises use Tribe to get real business results.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
All new Zoho Workerly 2024  —  Staffing businesses around the world face a unique set of challenges when it comes to managing their temporary workforce.  With a constantly shifting job market and changing staffing needs …
Comprehensive.io:
Browse salary data from 3,000 startups for free  —  Click for FREE, immediate access to real-time compensation benchmarking data.  Paid version helps HR automate comp reviews and communicate total compensation to employees.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Henry Shukman, Lessons from an Authentic Zen Master
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 03/28 - Claude 3 Opus Surpasses GPT-4 For The First Time
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:50 PM ET, February 7, 2020.

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

Mark Harris / TechCrunch:
Joe DeBlasio / Google Online Security Blog:

Earlier Picks

Reuters:
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
David Kirton / Reuters:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: