| 11:05 PM • | Yuliya Chernova / Wall Street Journal: LaunchDarkly, a feature management platform for developers, raises $54M led by Bessemer Venture Partners; sources say the company is now valued at $800M+ |
| 10:30 PM • | Monica Nickelsburg / GeekWire: Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter, and over 100 others, sign amicus brief to block Trump's “public charge” rule which sets high bar for immigrants to get legal status |
| 10:05 PM • | Sean Endicott / Windows Central: Microsoft partners with T-Mobile to provide 4G SIM cards to students in underserved areas of the US |
| 9:00 PM • | #PayUp: DoorDash pay data analysis: the average contractor earns $1.45/hour, nearly 33% of jobs pay less than $0 after expenses, and only 11% pay more than minimum wage |
| 8:40 PM • | Sarah Dai / South China Morning Post: Shanghai reportedly is trialing facial recognition at pharmacies to flag potential abusers and prevent pharmacists from helping patients obtain illegal drugs |
| 7:25 PM • | Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: FBI: nation-state hackers breached the networks of two US municipalities last year, targeting a Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability that was patched in February |
| 7:00 PM • | Rachel Metz / CNN: How the increasing use of AI to vet job applications is forcing career counselors at universities to prepare students on how to impress the AI algorithms |
| 5:45 PM • | Yolanda Redrup / Australian Financial Review: Australia-based hotel booking tech company SiteMinder raises A$100M at a valuation of A$1.1B, says it now has 35,000 hotels worldwide as clients |
| 4:40 PM • | Dustin Volz / Wall Street Journal: FBI says it will notify state officials when local election systems are hacked, after criticism that it wasn't doing enough to inform states of election threats |
| 4:30 PM • | Julia Alexander / The Verge: NBC says Peacock will launch on July 15 and have a free tier with limited programming and two premium tiers, at $4.99/month with ads and $9.99/month with no ads |
| 4:20 PM • | Wall Street Journal: Sources: Facebook puts off its effort to build ads into WhatsApp as it focuses on B2C communications, but will sell ads in WhatsApp's Status at some point |
| 3:55 PM • | Ryan Gallagher / Bloomberg: How spyware from eSurv, which was helping police hack suspects' phones in Italy, was allegedly used by its employees to hack the phones of innocent Italians |
| 3:05 PM • | Reuters: Canadian auto supplier Magna ends partnership with Lyft to develop and manufacture autonomous car systems, will focus on “the assisted driving part of autonomy” |
| 2:50 PM • | Ben Schoon / 9to5Google: Xiaomi says it resolved the issue of Google Nest Hubs connected to its security cameras showing feeds from random homes; Google integrations are now enabled |
| 2:45 PM • | Katie Kasunic / vpnMentor: Porn cam network PussyCash leaves ~20GB of personal data, including government IDs, of over 4,000 models exposed in an Amazon S3 bucket for days |
| 2:15 PM • | Abner Li / 9to5Google: Google says that 120 Stadia titles are coming in 2020, including 10 exclusives, and outlines new features coming soon, including increased Assistant support |
| 1:55 PM • | Kim Lyons / The Verge: Subscription podcast startup Luminary lowers monthly US subscription prices, from $7.99 a month to $4.99, and also cuts international rates |
| 1:00 PM • | Brad Smith / The Official Microsoft Blog: Microsoft pledges to be carbon negative by 2030, remove all carbon it has ever emitted by 2050, and launch a $1B climate innovation fund |
| 12:50 PM • | New York Times: Analysis: US-China “phase one” trade deal has wins for both sides, but areas like cybersecurity aren't covered and questions surround China's commitment |
| 12:35 PM • | Lauren Feiner / CNBC: Nancy Pelosi slams Facebook's “shameful” behavior, saying it doesn't “care about truth” and its execs “schmooze” Trump's admin to avoid taxes, antitrust action |
| 12:30 PM • | Joe Tidy / BBC: Following a BBC investigation, Twitter apologizes for letting ads be micro-targeted using keywords like “transphobic”, “white supremacists”, and “anti-gay” |
| 12:25 PM • | Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: New report finds Twitch viewership dropped 9.8% in Q4 compared with Q3 after its top streamers left; YouTube Gaming Live hours watched increased 46% over 2019 |
| 11:55 AM • | Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Epsagon, which offers a microservices application monitoring service, raises $16M Series A, says it has quadrupled its customer roster in the past 12 months |
| 11:35 AM • | Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch: WorkBoard, a SaaS startup that makes goal setting and management software, raises $30M Series C led by a16z, less than a year after a $23M Series B |
| 11:25 AM • | Chris Welch / The Verge: Bose to close all 119 of its retail stores in N. America, Europe, Japan, and Australia due to the shift to online shopping but will maintain stores elsewhere |
| 10:30 AM • | Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Nanox, which says it has digitized traditional X-rays using low-cost scanners and wants to offer an AI-based pay-per-scan service, raises $26M led by Foxconn |
| 9:55 AM • | Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE: Google announces Premium Support plan for enterprise cloud customers, starting at $12.5K per month with 15-minute response times for mission-critical situations |
| 9:05 AM • | New York Times: Turkey lifted a two-and-a-half year ban on Wikipedia on Wednesday, restoring access after the country's top court ruled that blocking it was unconstitutional |
| 8:05 AM • | Jason D. Rowley / Crunchbase News: Research: in 2019, there were 455 $100M+ VC rounds, totaling ~$108B or 47% of dollar volume, which is down from 467 such rounds totaling ~$148B in 2018 |
| 7:00 AM • | Adam Bluestein / Marker: A look at Utah's “Silicon Slopes” tech startup scene, where Mormonism defines the training and business ethics of CEOs but makes attracting diverse talent hard |
| 5:55 AM • | Tom Schmidt / Dragonfly Research: A look at the role of liquidators in the decentralized finance ecosystem, who make money by liquidating under-collateralized loans on crypto lending platforms |
| 2:25 AM • | Financial Times: A look at India's food delivery market, where the prospect of continued cash-burn is forcing market leaders Swiggy and Zomato to explore other business areas |
| 11:55 PM • | Alexis C. Madrigal / The Atlantic: As tech becomes the dominant force in the modern economy, Silicon Valley's culture since 1970s of nimble startups successfully challenging incumbents is fading |
| 9:20 PM • | Kim Hart / Axios: PitchBook: West Coast's share of total US VC deal value dropped to 50.2% in 2019 vs. 62.3% in 2018; 78% of funding went to CA, NY, and MA, up from 75% in 2018 |
| 8:15 PM • | Jon Fingas / Engadget: Fitbit confirms it has begun the rollout of blood oxygen monitoring feature to some of its wearables |
| 6:50 PM • | Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch: NextNav raises $120M for its positioning system that uses a cellular signal to determine vertical position of smartphones inside multi-story buildings |
| 5:35 PM • | Abner Li / 9to5Google: Google sets timeline for phasing out support for Chrome Apps across all operating systems by July 2022; the change won't affect Chrome extensions |
| 4:40 PM • | Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: App Annie: consumers downloaded 204B apps in 2019, up 6% YoY, and spent $120B on apps, subscriptions, and in-app features globally |
| 4:00 PM • | Ellen Zavian / Washington Post: The e-sports industry is increasingly coming under tax scrutiny by US states, amid ever-rising sums of prize money and an uptick in interstate competitions |
| 3:23 PM • | Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: Internal memo: Mozilla lays off ~70 after its 2019 plans to boost revenue streams outside of search, like new subscription products, did not pan out |
| 2:45 PM • | Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: YouTube launches Profile cards that show user's public information and comment history on the current channel, starting with Android |
| 2:30 PM • | Alex Konrad / Forbes: Productboard, a platform for product managers, raises $45M Series B led by Sequoia and Bessemer Venture Partners, source says at a $350M post-money valuation |
| 2:20 PM • | Kashmir Hill / New York Times: As companies comply with privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA, many have insecure practices for giving users their data and some outsource user identity verification |
| 2:05 PM • | Alan Boyle / GeekWire: Apple confirms it acquired Seattle-based Xnor.ai, which develops low-power, edge-based AI image recognition tools, sources say for around $200M |
| 1:36 PM • | Annie Palmer / CNBC: US and China trade deal will clamp down on counterfeit and pirated goods, some of which end up on Amazon and other platforms |
| 1:23 PM • | Bloomberg: US and China sign a “phase one” trade deal that seeks to limit theft of American tech and trade secrets by Chinese companies, such as through joint ventures |
| 1:05 PM • | Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: Sophos researchers find 25 “fleeceware” apps on the Play Store, installed by 600M+ users, that abuse the apps' free trial mechanic to charge obscene fees |
| 12:15 PM • | Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat: Microsoft begins rolling out its Chromium-based Edge browser, available now for Windows and macOS |
| 11:35 AM • | Romain Dillet / TechCrunch: French mobile payments app Lydia raises $45M Series B led by Tencent and says it has 3M users in France |
| 11:20 AM • | Sophia Kunthara / Crunchbase News: Austin-based startup FlashParking, which develops a parking management platform, raises $60M from L Catterton |
| 11:05 AM • | Yuan Yang / Financial Times: A look at how US pressure, driven by national security and trade concerns, has led to China seeking increased technological self-sufficiency |
| 10:50 AM • | Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Amid an antitrust probe and protests by small merchants, Jeff Bezos travels to India to announce a further $1B investment into Amazon's operations over 5 years |
| 10:10 AM • | James Vincent / The Verge: In a Q&A, Jack Dorsey discusses Twitter's thinking around an edit button and says “we'll probably never do it” |
| 9:55 AM • | Jonathan Lai / Andreessen Horowitz: How cloud-native gaming on platforms like Google's Stadia has the potential to usher in entirely new gameplay experiences and business models |
| 9:45 AM • | Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: Verbit, which provides AI-assisted transcription and captioning services to professional users, raises $31M Series B led by growth equity firm Stripes |
| 9:25 AM • | Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: 6Sense, which helps automate B2B sales processes with AI, raises $40M Series C led by Insight Partners, bringing its total raised to $105M |
| 9:05 AM • | Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: Cloudflare says it will provide free security services for US political campaigns, including DDoS mitigation, load balancing, and anti-bot protections |
| 8:55 AM • | Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Zinier, which provides workplace automation tools, raises $90M Series C led by ICONIQ Capital, bringing its total raised to $120M+ |
| 8:30 AM • | Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch: Anyline, which develops optical character recognition tech that developers can use to build OCR functions in their apps, raises $12M Series A led by Project A |
| 8:20 AM • | Nicholas Thompson / Wired: Interview with US CTO Michael Kratsios on the government's recent regulatory framework for AI, the potential for an AI cold war with China, and more |
| 7:25 AM • | Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch: Oviva, which provides a tech-based approach for Type 2 diabetes treatment in Europe, raises $21M Series B led by MTIP, bringing its total raised to $34M |
| 6:00 AM • | Blake Hester / Polygon: Former Microsoft employees and third-party developers reflect on the rise and fall of Microsoft Kinect, which was once billed as the future of Xbox |
| 4:05 AM • | Crunchbase News: Analysis: European startups raised over $36B from VCs in 2019, up 25% from 2018 to reach a five-year high, and more than double the amount raised in 2015 |
| 2:30 AM • | Abner Li / 9to5Google: Google Smart Lock on iOS now leverages Secure Enclave to enable the iPhone's use as a physical 2FA key to sign in to Google apps via Chrome on nearby devices |
| 12:15 AM • | Mariella Moon / Engadget: Facebook will now notify users via email and the Facebook App when their account is used to log in to a third-party app or website |
| 11:57 PM • | Abner Li / 9to5Google: YouTube for iOS adds filters for its Subscriptions tab, letting users sort videos via tags like All, Today, Unwatched, Continue Watching, Live, and Posts |
| 9:50 PM • | Michael Thomsen / Daily Mail: Toyota launches Kinto in Europe, a package of four separate mobility programs including car sharing, car pooling, and subscription-based leasing |
| 9:20 PM • | Jeff Stone / CyberScoop: Equifax to pay $380.5M to members of a class action suit whose data was compromised in 2017 breach, after a federal judge approved the final settlement Monday |
| 9:15 PM • | Ben Thompson / Stratechery: Visa's Plaid acquisition will pay off if Visa can leverage Plaid's fintech network and make it worthwhile for banks to build out the APIs Plaid needs |
| 8:50 PM • | New York Times: Sources: Apple is preparing for a legal fight with the DOJ, similar to San Bernardino, which was not legally resolved before FBI dropped the case |
| 7:35 PM • | Kif Leswing / CNBC: In a tweet, Trump criticizes Apple for refusing to unlock phones of violent criminals and says his administration helps Apple “all of the time” on trade |
| 6:30 PM • | Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: Cellebrite, whose tech was likely used to unlock the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone, buys BlackBag for $33M to expand its capabilities beyond smartphones |
| 5:40 PM • | Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch: Hotel and flight search service Hipmunk says it's shutting down on January 23, over three years after SAP Concur acquired it |
| 4:50 PM • | Garett Sloane / Ad Age: Twitter suspends Grindr from its ad platform as it investigates report that the dating app shared sensitive data with ad tech partners including Twitter's MoPub |
| 4:25 PM • | Max Weinbach / XDA Developers: Source: hands-on with a leaked Samsung Galaxy S20+ shows it has a 120Hz 3200 x 1440 display, ultrasonic under-display fingerprint scanner, and no headphone jack |
| 4:15 PM • | Ron Miller / TechCrunch: US data center giant Equinix announces it is acquiring bare metal cloud provider Packet, a NYC startup that has raised over $36M |
| 3:50 PM • | Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: KeyMe, which uses AI to duplicate keys at 3,000+ locations in 49 states, supporting ~85% of all auto keys, raises $35M following its $50M raise in 2019 |
| 2:53 PM • | Annie Palmer / CNBC: Amazon reinstates FedEx's ground delivery for Prime shipments, saying the shipper has consistently met its delivery requirements, after suspending it last month |
| 2:51 PM • | Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Google acquires no-code app development platform AppSheet, which had raised ~$19M to date, with plans to migrate AppSheet services to Google Cloud |
| 2:30 PM • | David Cohen / Adweek: Pandora debuts Test & Tune, a suite of audience measurement tools in open beta that provide insights into campaigns' effectiveness while they are underway |
| 2:21 PM • | Paul Sawers / VentureBeat: Passwordless authentication platform Trusona raises $20M led by Georgian Partners, with participation from Microsoft's M12, Kleiner Perkins, Akamai, others |
| 1:35 PM • | Juli Clover / MacRumors: Gartner: global Mac shipments in Q4 dropped by 3% YoY, to 5.26M units, as the overall PC market saw growth for the first time since 2011 |
| 1:00 PM • | Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Sensor Tower: Disney+ was downloaded 30M+ times in the US in Q4 2019, besting TikTok; Disney+ now has 41M+ installs and generated ~$97M in revenue to date |
| 12:55 PM • | Margaret Harding McGill / Axios: Tech companies, from IBM and Microsoft to Etsy and Reddit, file amicus briefs in support of Google ahead of its Supreme Court battle with Oracle |
| 12:40 PM • | Mike Butcher / TechCrunch: Tradeshift, which builds private marketplaces for businesses and facilitates supply chain payments, raises $240M in equity and debt, appearing to delay its IPO |
| 12:20 PM • | Paul Sawers / VentureBeat: Verizon Media debuts OneSearch, a privacy-focused search engine that claims to serve ads based only on contextual info related to individual searches |
| 12:05 PM • | Axios: Internal memo: Uber's Rachel Holt, a longtime executive and chief of New Modalities, which includes scooters and bikes, is leaving to launch a VC firm |
| 12:00 PM • | Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: Google plans to phase out support for user-agent strings in Chrome, opting for a new technology called Client Hints, as part of its Privacy Sandbox project |
| 11:54 AM • | Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Google acquires Dublin-based Pointy, a startup helping brick-and-mortar retailers track which products they have in stock, a source says for $163M |
| 11:40 AM • | Ashley Carman / The Verge: Instagram says it is testing letting some users access DMs from its website |
| 11:35 AM • | Stephen Shankland / CNET: Google says it will phase out support for third-party cookies in Chrome within two years |
| 11:20 AM • | Thomas Germain / Consumer Reports: New study shows how popular apps including Grindr, OkCupid, Tinder, and the period-tracking apps Clue and MyDays share intimate user data with data brokers |
| 10:50 AM • | Shona Ghosh / Business Insider: Google is buying an Irish retail search startup called Pointy |
| 10:40 AM • | Nick Statt / The Verge: Epic says its PC game store, which serves as Fortnite's launcher, has 108M users and generated $251M in 3rd-party game sales since its debut in December 2018 |
| 9:55 AM • | Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: A look at tech catering to the needs of the elderly showcased at CES; US citizens over 50 are projected to spend $84B on tech products over the next decade |
| 9:20 AM • | Mars W. Mosqueda Jr. / Deal Street Asia: aCommerce, which helps brands sell their products online in Southeast Asia, raises $15M from Indies Capital Partners, bringing its total raised to ~$118.8M |
| 8:45 AM • | Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Spotify signs global licensing agreement with Warner Music's publishing firm, making its music available in India, ending a year-long dispute |
| 7:45 AM • | Mike Minotti / VentureBeat: Sensor Tower: mobile players spent $61.7B on games in 2019, up 12.8% YoY, with games making up 68% of total iOS App Store revenue vs 84% for the Play Store |
| 6:30 AM • | Isabel Woodford / Sifted: A look at Islamic fintechs, which adhere to halal finance rules, but still face challenges, like convincing people to switch from traditional to digital banks |
| 4:10 AM • | Saritha Rai / Bloomberg: A look at India's upcoming “account aggregator” system, aimed at giving citizens easy access to their financial data, which they can share to get loans and more |
| 2:05 AM • | Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security: Microsoft pushes a fix for a critical flaw in a cryptographic component present in all versions of Windows; NSA says it alerted Microsoft to the bug |
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