Techmeme
March 29, 2019, 11:35 PM

Top News

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:
Apple cancels AirPower wireless charging mat, citing inability to meet its quality standards for the product  —  Apple has canceled the AirPower product completely, citing difficulty meeting its own standards.  —  “After much effort, we've concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project.
Craig Lloyd / iFixit:
A theory on Apple's AirPower: its overlapping multi-coil design worked in the lab but complying with FCC's rules for safe wireless emissions was too challenging  —  In a surprising turn of events, Apple has cancelled its long-awaited AirPower wireless charging mat.
Sara Salinas / CNBC:
Lyft closes up 8.7% on its first day of trading after raising $2.3B in its IPO, which valued the company at over $20B  —  - The stock ended trading 8.7 percent up at $78.29 — something of a modest IPO for such a giant tech company.  —  Lyft's stock popped as much as 23 percent in its debut on the public market Friday.
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Interview with YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan about its recommendation algorithms, radicalization, violent extremism, and the rabbit-hole effect  —  Neal Mohan discusses the streaming site's recommendation engine, which has become a growing liability amid accusations that it steers users to increasingly extreme content.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
A newly published exploit for a Magento vulnerability that can be used without authentication puts hundreds of thousands of e-commerce sites at risk  —  Magento admins: beware of SQL flaw that requires no authentication.  —  Attack code was published on Friday that exploits a critical vulnerability …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Toast, a cloud-based restaurant management platform, raises a $250M Series E led by TCV and Tiger Global at a $2.7B valuation  —  Restaurant sales hit $825 billion last year in the US, but with margins averaging at only three to five percent per business, they're always looking for an edge …
Hannah Kuchler / Financial Times:
A look at Facebook's growth team, set up in 2007 to pioneer techniques to lure in new users, that has now been charged to fix the company's “integrity” problems  —  If you joined Facebook at any time over the past decade, Alex Schultz probably had something to do with it.
Jessica Toonkel / The Information:
Sources: Amazon is planning to launch a free ad-supported video news app for Fire TV devices, featuring digital news programming from TV networks  —  Amazon.com is planning to launch a free ad-supported video news app for its Fire TV streaming video devices, featuring digital news programming …
Ian Allison / CoinDesk:
Coinbase Custody starts offering staking services to institutional clients, starting with Tezos  —  The Takeaway:  — Coinbase Custody is offering staking services to institutional clients, starting with Tezos.  — Client assets will remain inside Coinbase's fully insured cold storage at all times, mitigating risk to investors.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple to close Texture on May 28 following the launch of Apple News+, effectively ending the service for subscribers without Apple devices  —  A year ago, Apple acquired the digital newsstand app Texture to form the basis of its new subscription-based service, Apple News+, which launched on Monday.
Ina Fried / Axios:
Google pulls “conversion therapy” app after prominent LGBTQ group Human Rights Campaign suspended Google's ranking from its influential Corporate Equality Index  —  Google is pulling a controversial app that LGBTQ rights groups say engages in a form of conversion therapy …
Reuters:
Sources: cross-border money transfer startup TransferWise is raising up to $300M at a ~$4B valuation  —  (Reuters) - TransferWise Ltd, the money transfer startup whose investors include entrepreneur Richard Branson and PayPal Holdings Inc founders Peter Thiel and Max Levchin …
Angela Chen / The Verge:
Inmates at two Finland prisons are classifying data to train AI for a startup building a database of companies; some experts have concerns about exploitation  —  Empowerment or exploitation?  —  “Prison labor” is usually associated with physical work, but inmates at two prisons in Finland …
Rob Price / Business Insider:
Facebook says it “mistakenly deleted” some of Zuckerberg's old Facebook posts that were public and reported on, including a post about the Instagram acquisition  —  - Some old Facebook posts by CEO Mark Zuckerberg have disappeared, and the company says it “mistakenly deleted” them.
Gina Narcisi / CRN:
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins says the company is on track to have software and services account for 30% of its revenue over the next three years  —  As Cisco transforms its business model to focus first on software and services, the IT giant wants to encourage more partners to go after more 'holy …
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