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May 12, 2020, 11:30 AM
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Top News

Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Sources: Facebook is quietly helping to launch American Edge, a political advocacy group in Washington, to battle regulators trying to rein in the tech industry  —  The organization, called American Edge, arrives at a time when the industry is facing withering antitrust scrutiny in Washington.
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
Sources: Apple's over-ear headphones, called “AirPods Studio”, will feature head and neck detection sensors, automated audio channel routing, and more  —  We've been hearing about Apple's upcoming over-ear headphones for some time, with evidence from multiple sources pointing to the official launch later this year.
Apple:
Apple unveils an update to Logic Pro X with Live Loops, a redesigned sampling workflow, and new beat-making tools  —  New Creative Tools for Electronic Music Production Make Logic Pro X 10.5 a Breakthrough Release for Musicians and Producers  —  Cupertino, California …
Elizabeth Culliford / Reuters:
Twitter says it will add labels and warning messages to tweets about COVID-19 with misleading or disputed content and plans to expand the labels to other topics  —  (Reuters) - Twitter Inc will add labels and warning messages on some tweets with disputed or misleading information about COVID-19 …
Travis M. Andrews / Washington Post:
Facebook, YouTube, and Vimeo say they are removing a viral 26-minute trailer for “Plandemic”, a conspiracy film that features well-known anti-vaxxers
Ed Hammond / Bloomberg:
Sources: Uber has made an offer to acquire Grubhub, with an agreement possible as soon as this month, sending the food delivery company's stock up 24%+  —  Uber Technologies Inc. has made an offer to acquire food-delivery startup Grubhub Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg News reports.
Nicole Sperling / New York Times:
Jeffrey Katzenberg blames COVID-19 for Quibi's paltry downloads as execs lower projections from 7M users and $250M subscriber revenue estimated for first year  —  Downloads of the $1.8 billion short-form streaming app, meant for phones, are paltry.  “I attribute everything that has gone wrong to coronavirus,” Mr. Katzenberg said.
Alexander Behrens / Decrypt:
TD Ameritrade-backed ErisX launches the first Ethereum futures trading platform in the US authorized by regulators  —  Ethereum has taken another big step into the regulated financial world.  —  ErisX, a US-based digital asset trading platform backed by TD Ameritrade, today launched trading for Ethereum …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
LinkedIn adds polls and live video-based events in a focus on more virtual engagement  —  With a large part of the working world doing jobs from home when possible these days, the focus right now is on how best to recreate the atmosphere of an office virtually, and how to replicate online essential work that used to be done in person.
Elise Favis / Washington Post:
A look at Nookazon, a fan-made online retailer for trading Animal Crossing in-game items that claims 270K DAUs, over 9M listings, and 7M page views per day  —  Daniel Luu, a 25-year-old software engineer from Maryland, woke up one morning to find hundreds of thousands of people scouring his newly launched website Nookazon.
Franklin Foer / The Atlantic:
US election security responses against Russian interference in 2016 remain inadequate as Russian tactics continue to evolve in the run up to the 2020 election  —  Jack Cable sat down at the desk in his cramped dorm room to become an adult in the eyes of democracy.
Wolfie Zhao / CoinDesk:
Bitcoin's third “halving”, the programmed event where mining rewards drop, has occurred, lowering the payout to 6.25 BTC per block; the last halving was in 2016  —  Bitcoin's third halving, the network's quadrennial landmark and the most anticipated event this year in the cryptocurrency industry, has finally happened.
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Profile and behind-the-scenes story of Marcus “MalwareTech” Hutchins, who helped stop the WannaCry attack and pled guilty to selling the Kronos banking malware  —  At 22, he single-handedly put a stop to the worst cyberattack the world had ever seen.  Then he was arrested by the FBI.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Microsoft's new Family Safety app, for managing kids' screen time and app usage, launches in preview on Android and iOS and syncs with Windows and Xbox devices  —  The app syncs with Windows and Xbox devices  —  Microsoft is launching a dedicated new app, Family Safety, designed for managing kids' screen time and app usage.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
DispatchTrack, which provides logistics services for last-mile deliveries, raises $144M from Spectrum Equity, in its first-ever funding  —  The current state of our COVID-19 world has underscored more than ever before the need for reliable delivery and e-commerce services …
More: VentureBeat and FinSMEs
Bobbie Johnson / MIT Technology Review:
Iceland's contract tracing app has ~38% adoption, the highest in the world, among its population of 364,000, but its impact on containing COVID-19 seems small  —  The country has the highest penetration of any automated contact tracing app in the world, but one senior figure says it “wasn't a game changer.”
Connie Loizos / TechCrunch:
Secondary shares marketplace Forge agrees to acquire rival Sharespost in a $160M cash-and-stock deal; Forge has raised $109M to date, Sharespost has raised $38M  —  Even amid a pandemic, there's a race on to create a powerful, global private securities marketplace where private shares …
Barton Gellman / Washington Post:
Adapted excerpt from the book Dark Mirror by Barton Gellman, one of the reporters who received top-secret documents from Snowden about NSA's mass surveillance  —  After receiving top-secret documents from the NSA whistleblower, reporter Barton Gellman broke the news that the National Security Agency was spying on Americans.

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From Mediagazer

Angela Fu / Poynter:
A look at what a Democratic-controlled Congress could focus on to protect press freedom, including investigating the FCC and reforming transparency laws

Matthew Keys / TheDesk.net:
Newsmax reported Q3 net income of $15.2M and revenue up 52.5% YoY to $69M, including a one-time $14M termination payment for a canceled ad deal; NMAX rose 31.4%

Winston Cho / The Hollywood Reporter:
A group of consumers refiles a lawsuit to unwind Paramount's WBD deal, citing HBO Max and Paramount+ bundling, the ouster of DC Studios heads, and budget cuts

More News

Sarah Emerson / OneZero :
Tech labor leaders are organizing using Facebook Groups and sites like Coworker.org to prevent labor movements from being suppressed and surveilled by companies

Earlier Picks

Steve Neavling / Detroit Metro Times:
Michigan's governor implores Facebook to better enforce its rules after threats of violence against her surface in private groups, one of which FB has removed
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify begins rolling out a new feature called Group Session, which lets multiple Premium users control a listening session
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Premium email app Newton Mail says it has been bought by new owners and will still charge $50 per year
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Researcher: PCs with Thunderbolt ports have an unpatchable flaw letting hackers with physical access circumvent data safeguards; some new PCs are not affected
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