Techmeme
May 15, 2020, 11:45 AM

Top News

Axios:
Facebook to buy Giphy, keep its branding, integrate with Instagram; sources say the deal is worth ~$400M, while Giphy was valued at ~$600M in its latest round  —  Facebook has agreed to buy Giphy, the popular platform of sharable animated images, Axios has learned from multiple sources.
Reuters:
US bans sales of semiconductors and semiconductor designs made abroad using certain US software and technology to Huawei  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Friday moved to block shipments of semiconductors to Huawei Technologies from global chipmakers, in an action that could ramp up tensions with China.
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Kuo: Apple planning a 10.8 inch iPad in H2 2020 and a new iPad mini in H1 2021, predicts AR glasses with laminated lens in 2022 at the earliest  —  - Apple could launch new iPads in the coming year, TF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said in a new note on Thursday.
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Members of the anti-vaccine community are experienced at exploiting weaknesses of social media platforms and are primed to sow doubts about a COVID-19 vaccine  —  Social media is already filling up with misinformation about a Covid-19 vaccine, months or years before one even exists.
Saheli Roy Choudhury / CNBC:
Singapore state investor Temasek joins Libra, along with cryptocurrency investor Paradigm and private equity firm Slow Ventures  —  - Singapore state investor Temasek is one of the latest organizations to join the Facebook-backed digital currency project libra.
Wall Street Journal:
TSMC says it plans to spend $12B to build a 5nm chip factory in Arizona as the White House seeks to increase domestic chip production  —  Plans for TSMC's Arizona Plant Come As Trump Seeks To Cut Dependence on Asia  —  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., TSM 2.32% the world's largest …
Shannon Vavra / CyberScoop:
Microsoft opens up its threat intelligence data, including file hash indicators used in email scams, to wider security community via GitHub during the pandemic  —  Microsoft is making the threat intelligence it's collected on coronavirus-related hacking campaigns public, the company announced Thursday.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple acquires California-based VR startup NextVR; a report in April said the deal is valued at around $100M  —  - NextVR provides virtual-reality sports content to headsets  — Apple developing virtual reality, augmented reality headsets  —  Apple Inc. confirmed it acquired NextVR …
Globe Newswire:
JD.com beats expectations with Q1 revenue of $20.59B, up 20.7% YoY and net income of $200M; active customers increased 24.8% YoY to 387.4M  —  JD.com Announces First Quarter 2020 Results Email Print Friendly Share May 15, 2020 05:50 ET |  Source: JD.com BEIJING, May 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) …
Tim Hardwick / MacRumors:
Spotify restores web player support for the Safari browser after previously removing it in 2017  —  Spotify users can once again use Safari to access the streaming service's web player, following the restoration of support for Apple's browser this week after over two-and-a-half years of incompatibility.
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Microsoft says it will acquire Metaswitch Networks, a provider of virtualized network software whose customers include telecom companies like BT and Sprint  —  - The announcement comes less than a month after Microsoft closed the acquisition of another company focused on the telecommunications market, Affirmed Networks.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
From August, Chrome will start blocking ads that consume 4MB of network data, 15 seconds of CPU usage in any 30 second period, or 60 seconds of total CPU usage  —  Google today announced that Chrome will start blocking resource-heavy ads.  The company ads that mine cryptocurrency …

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Earlier Picks

Washington Post:
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Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
Bloomberg: