• Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg: Twitter acquires Chroma Labs, which makes tools for video and photo creation, will split team across product, design, and engineering, shut down Chroma Stories

• Karen Hao / MIT Technology Review: Interviews with current and former employees reveal how OpenAI has become more secretive as it tries to juggle its ideals with the need to finance its research

• Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch: Elon Musk says all advanced AI development should be regulated, including at Tesla, and that OpenAI, which he cofounded, “should be more open”

• Josh Constine / TechCrunch: Facebook is internally testing a tabbed version of News Feed for mobile that includes the Most Relevant feed, the Most Recent feed, and an Already Seen feed
  Facebook: The Inside Story: Pre-order Steven Levy's definitive history, out 2/25Ad

• Johana Bhuiyan / Los Angeles Times: Sources: Uber shuts down its customer support office in LA, laying off ~80 employees and outsourcing their jobs to a support office in Manila

• Jon Fingas / Engadget: Ring makes two-factor authentication mandatory and pauses use of most third-party analytics services as it devises ways to limit data sharing with third parties

• Sponsor Post Smartsheet: Six soft skills you need to drive digital transformation   —  Technical skills are easy to focus on when building a team.  But a new study found that 57 percent of business leaders say soft skills are even more important.

• Nicholas Quah / Hot Pod News: Patreon has launched Patreon Capital, which provides creators with cash advances they pay back with slight interest using income earned on the platform

• Nilesh Christopher / VICE: An Indian election candidate created multiple deepfakes of his own video with him speaking different languages to access voters, reaching ~15M WhatsApp users

• Robert Hof / SiliconANGLE: Dell announces it is selling its RSA cybersecurity firm to a consortium led by private equity firm Symphony Technology Group for $2.075B   —  Updated:

• Hugh Son / CNBC: LendingClub is acquiring Boston-based online bank Radius Bancorp in a deal valued at $185M, making it the first US fintech company to acquire a bank

• Sponsor Post Zoho: eDiscovery part two: best and worst practices   —  In part one of our eDiscovery series, we discussed the basics of email retention and eDiscovery.  As you implement a new email retention policy or look into replacing your existing one …

• Bloomberg: Sources: iPhone SE 2 is on track to launch in March despite coronavirus crisis, and updated iPad Pro models with a new camera system are expected in H1 2020

• Corbin Davenport / Android Police: Mozilla releases its VPN service Firefox Private Network on Android in a closed beta for $4.99/month   —  Mozilla, the organization behind the much-loved Firefox web browser …

• Lauren Kaori Gurley / VICE: Kickstarter employees vote 46-37 to unionize with the Office and Professional Employees International Union   —  Kickstarter employees voted to form a union …

• Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica: ISPs seek an injunction against a Maine law requiring opt-in consent before sharing customer info like browsing histories, saying it violates free-speech rights

• Sponsor Post Techmeme Leaderboards: PR pros: identify the top reporters on 43 different tech beats   —  Who are the most influential writers on topics like AI, VR, IoT, or e-commerce?  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl data to find out.  View any topic report instantly!

• Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch: Atomico announces its fifth fund has closed at $820M, bringing their total assets to $2.7B; Atomico will mostly fund European startups at Series A

• Alfred Ng / CNET: ElectionGuard, the open-source voting machine software Microsoft announced in May 2019, gets its first real-world test today in a local vote in Fulton, WI

• Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Huntress, a SaaS cybersecurity provider, raises $18M Series A led by ForgePoint Capital as it expands into additional market segments and geographies

• Doris Yu / Tech in Asia: Indonesia-based Eureka, which provides consumer intelligence to mobile carriers and enterprises by using AI and mobile data analytics, raises $20M Series B

• 35 minutes ago Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Huntress, a SaaS cybersecurity provider, raises $18M Series A led by ForgePoint Capital as it expands into additional market segments and geographies

• 3½ hours ago Josh Constine / TechCrunch: Facebook is internally testing a tabbed version of News Feed for mobile that includes the Most Relevant feed, the Most Recent feed, and an Already Seen feed
  Facebook: The Inside Story: Pre-order Steven Levy's definitive history, out 2/25Ad

• 3½ hours ago Doris Yu / Tech in Asia: Indonesia-based Eureka, which provides consumer intelligence to mobile carriers and enterprises by using AI and mobile data analytics, raises $20M Series B

• 4 hours ago Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch: Atomico announces its fifth fund has closed at $820M, bringing their total assets to $2.7B; Atomico will mostly fund European startups at Series A

• 4½ hours ago Hugh Son / CNBC: LendingClub is acquiring Boston-based online bank Radius Bancorp in a deal valued at $185M, making it the first US fintech company to acquire a bank

• Sponsor Post Mattermost: Why Mattermost built a Kubernetes Operator   —  Mattermost built an “operator” that installs and manages the open source Slack alternative through simple commands that require only limited Kubernetes knowledge.

• 5 hours ago Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg: Twitter acquires Chroma Labs, which makes tools for video and photo creation, will split team across product, design, and engineering, shut down Chroma Stories

• 6 hours ago Johana Bhuiyan / Los Angeles Times: Sources: Uber shuts down its customer support office in LA, laying off ~80 employees and outsourcing their jobs to a support office in Manila

• 6 hours ago Corbin Davenport / Android Police: Mozilla releases its VPN service Firefox Private Network on Android in a closed beta for $4.99/month   —  Mozilla, the organization behind the much-loved Firefox web browser …

• 6 hours ago Annie Musgrove / Tech.eu: London-based Concirrus, which builds an AI-based predictive analytics platform to help insurance providers rate customers, raises $20M Series B led by AlbionVC

• 7 hours ago Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: UltraSense Systems, maker of ultrasound technology to sense movement and gestures through a range of materials like metal, glass, and wood, raises $20M Series B

• 9 hours ago Steven Overly / Politico: Judge rules that Huawei does not have grounds to sue the US government over a law banning federal agencies and their contractors from buying Huawei products

• 9 hours ago Manish Singh / TechCrunch: India opens cases against hundreds of VPN users in Kashmir; those found guilty of promoting “unlawful activities and secessionist ideology” face up to 7 years

• 10 hours ago Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica: ISPs seek an injunction against a Maine law requiring opt-in consent before sharing customer info like browsing histories, saying it violates free-speech rights

• 11 hours ago Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk: BitGo acquires Harbor, issuer of tokens backed by real world assets, and will now hold broker-dealer, transfer agent, and qualified custodian licenses

• Sponsor Post Zoho: eDiscovery part two: best and worst practices   —  In part one of our eDiscovery series, we discussed the basics of email retention and eDiscovery.  As you implement a new email retention policy or look into replacing your existing one …

• 11 hours ago Andy Greenberg / Wired: Eclypsium report shows that many PC peripherals, like USB hubs and webcams, have a major security flaw: their firmware can be updated with “unsigned” code

• 12 hours ago Nilesh Christopher / VICE: An Indian election candidate created multiple deepfakes of his own video with him speaking different languages to access voters, reaching ~15M WhatsApp users

• 12 hours ago Meagan Simpson / BetaKit: Vancouver-based Semios, which develops a real-time crop data and pest management platform that connects to IoT sensors, raises ~$75M in private equity funding

• 12 hours ago Alfred Ng / CNET: ElectionGuard, the open-source voting machine software Microsoft announced in May 2019, gets its first real-world test today in a local vote in Fulton, WI