Techmeme
February 21, 2019, 7:05 PM

Top News

Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
WSJ: Apple partnered with Ant Financial's Alipay to offer its customers in China up to two years of interest-free financing to buy products in its online store  —  - In an effort to boost falling sales in the region, Apple introduced two-year financing to Alipay users who buy their products.
Andrew Webster / The Verge:
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé is retiring, and will be replaced by the VP of Sales and Marketing Doug Bowser on April 15  —  To be replaced by marketing boss Doug Bowser  —  One of Nintendo's most public faces is leaving the company.
CNBC:
AT&T says it is pulling all advertising from YouTube, after reports of pedophiles openly using the platform; Nestle and Epic Games have also pulled ads  —  - AT&T and Hasbro are pulling ads from YouTube following reports that pedophiles have latched onto videos of young children and lurk in the comments section.
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
Maureen Farrell / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Pinterest has confidentially filed for an IPO, seeking a valuation of at least $12B  —  Pinterest has confidentially filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering, joining a parade of highly valued technology startups planning to list their shares in 2019.
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Freight logistics startup Flexport raises a $1B round led by SoftBank's Vision Fund, source says at a valuation of $3.2B  —  His startup operates its own 747 aircraft and employs 1,066 people across 11 offices and four warehouses around the world.  He's tackling a market he calls …
Taylor Lorenz / The Atlantic:
Kids googling themselves for the first time face shock, frustration, and sometimes excitement at content parents had been posting about them since their birth  —  For several months, Cara has been working up the courage to approach her mom about what she saw on Instagram.
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft previews Dynamics 365 AI and mixed reality services and applications on iOS, Android, and HoloLens for remote assistance, customized bots, and more  —  Microsoft is readying new Dynamics 365 AI- and mixed-reality-centric services and applications for remote-assistance, customized bots and more.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
David McCabe / Axios:
Google says it will no longer enforce mandatory arbitration for current and future employees starting March 21; change won't apply to many temporary staff  —  Google will no longer require current and future employees to take disputes with the company to arbitration, it said Thursday.
Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News:
Singapore Airlines and American Airlines confirm that some seat screens have embedded cameras but say they are disabled, after a photo of one goes viral  —  A viral photo showing a camera in a Singapore Airlines in-flight TV display recently caused an uproar online.
Ina Fried / Axios:
Developers and Intel officials expect Apple to move to ARM-based Macs as soon as next year; Bloomberg report suggests first ARM-based Mac arriving in 2020  —  Apple is widely expected to move its Mac line to custom ARM-based chips in the coming years.  —  What we're hearing …
Sam Dean / Los Angeles Times:
Investigation finds Facebook still lets users target ads based around interest in neo-Nazis; Facebook says it will remove the seldom-used audience groupings  —  Facebook makes money by charging advertisers to reach just the right audience for their message — even when that audience …
Sara Salinas / CNBC:
Zillow says CEO Spencer Rascoff is stepping down, to be replaced by co-founder and former CEO Rich Barton, as the company announces Q4 earnings  —  - Rascoff, also a co-founder, served as CEO for nearly a decade.  He recently oversaw a tumultuous transition for Zillow as the home buying platform moved …
More: Bloomberg and GeekWire
Aaron Mak / Slate:
Police across the US are increasingly using “reverse location search warrants” to force tech companies to hand over location data of anyone near a crime scene  —  Police departments are using “reverse location search warrants” to force Google to hand over data on anyone near a crime scene.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Armorblox, which uses natural language processing to protect against cyber attacks by analyzing sensitive info in emails and documents, raises $16.5M Series A  —  Natural language processing (NLP) — the branch of AI that helps computers understand and manipulate human language …

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