Techmeme
June 28, 2018, 4:55 PM

Top News

CNBC:
Amazon to acquire online pharmacy PillPack, which organizes and delivers drugs to consumers and is licensed in 50 states; PillPack has raised $117.8M in funding  —  - PillPack packages, organizes and delivers drugs.  It sends consumers packages with the specific number of medications they're supposed to take at specific times.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Sources: Amazon acquired PillPack in a deal valued at just under $1B; PillPack had been in acquisition talks with Walmart, which was outbid by Amazon  —  A week after appointing a CEO for its healthcare joint venture with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan, Amazon today announced an acquisition …
Anna Hensel / VentureBeat:
Facebook rolls out a button to show ads a Page is running, even if not targeted to the user, across Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger  —  Facebook today released a new tool that will allow users to see what advertisements a Page is running — whether or not all of those advertisements are targeted at that particular users.
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
Twitter makes its Ad Transparency Center, announced before Congressional hearings in October, available to all users  —  Twitter is unveiling the Ads Transparency Center that it announced back in October.  —  This comes as Twitter and other online platforms have faced growing political scrutiny around …
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Niantic Labs, which helped develop Pokémon Go, says it will open the underlying AR platform, called Real World Engine, to third-party developers  —  Niantic Labs, the San Francisco-based game developer responsible for creating the massively successful augmented reality game Pokémon Go …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Instagram adds the ability to add licenced songs as background music for Stories starting today in 7 countries and says it has 400M daily Stories users  —  The right music can make a boring photo or video epic, so Instagram is equipping users with a way to add popular songs to their Stories.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Matthew Lynley / TechCrunch:
Bird officially announces $300M raise led by Sequoia Capital, its second raise in just a few months  —  And there we have it: Bird, one of the emerging massively-hyped Scooter startups, has roped in its next pile of funding by picking up another $300 million in a round led by Sequoia Capital.
Catalin Cimpanu / BleepingComputer:
Norwegian agency report: Facebook and Google manipulate users to share personal data using “dark patterns” despite GDPR; Windows 10 gets a more favorable rating  —  Despite the new GDPR regulation entering into effect across Europe, Facebook and Google are manipulating users …
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Kroger, the US's largest supermarket chain, teams up with Nuro, a two-year-old self-driving startup, to launch driverless delivery service later this fall  —  Kroger is teaming up with Nuro, a startup founded by two veterans of Google's self-driving team  —  Kroger, the nation's largest …
David Carnoy / CNET:
Amazon introduces Show Mode in its Fire HD tablets via a software update that turns them into an Echo Show for a hands-free Alexa experience  —  Amazon wants you to think of your Fire tablet as not just a tablet but a full-fledged Alexa-enabled device — or more precisely, a slimmed down Echo Show.
Jessica Toonkel / The Information:
Sources: Apple is considering a single subscription offering that would encompass its original TV shows, music service, and magazine articles  —  Apple is considering creating a single subscription offering that would encompass its original TV shows, music service and magazine articles …
Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
Amazon is expanding further into package delivery and wants to enlist entrepreneurs and small business owners to start their own delivery service networks  —  Amazon is expanding further into package delivery and promising to support a new wave of small business owners with the launch …
TechCrunch:
Google leads $22M Series A in feature phone OS KaiOS, which powers over 40M phones made by OEMs including Nokia, Micromax, and Alcatel  —  Google is turning startup investor to further its goal of putting Google services like search, maps, and its voice assistant front and center for the next billion internet users in emerging markets.
David Henry / Reuters:
JP Morgan Chase launches Finn by Chase, a mobile only bank account with an app for iOS and an Android version coming by the end of the year  —  NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) said on Thursday that it is now offering a digital bank account for smartphones nationally after testing …
Colin Lecher / The Verge:
The California Data Privacy Protection Act, one of the toughest data privacy bills in US, passes state legislature, goes to governor for final approval  —  California lawmakers passed one of the toughest data privacy bills in the United States today, as they faced pressure from an even stronger ballot measure in the state.
More: Engadget
Aaron Smith / Pew Research Center:
Survey of 4,594 US adults: 72% say it's likely social media firms censor opposing political views; 43% say firms support liberal views over conservative views  —  A majority of Republicans say technology firms support the views of liberals over conservatives and that social media platforms censor political viewpoints.
Washington Post:
A look at Facebook's struggle with differentiating between legitimate political campaigns and disinformation ahead of the Mexican election next week  —  By Elizabeth Dwoskin June 22 Email the author  —  MEXICO CITY — This spring, a doctored image claiming that the wife …

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