Techmeme
May 3, 2019, 2:50 PM

Top News

Mike Dudas / The Block:
Report: Facebook seeks ~$1B from financial firms and e-commerce sites to back its stablecoin as it readies its payments network and rewards system for users  —  - Facebook is planning to launch a full payments network (rather than just remittances) and in discussions with payment networks Visa …
Jason Del Rey / Vox:
An oral history of Amazon Prime, the internet's most successful membership program with 100M+ members worldwide and one of the main reasons behind Amazon's rise  —  An oral history of the subscription service that changed online shopping forever.  —  It's easy to forget now, but Amazon wasn't always the king of online shopping.
David Singleton / Stripe Blog:
Stripe says its fifth engineering hub will be remote, to situate product development closer to customers, and it will hire 100+ remote engineers in 2019  —  Stripe has engineering hubs in San Francisco, Seattle, Dublin, and Singapore.  We are establishing a fifth hub that is less traditional but no less important: Remote.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: SoftBank is considering an IPO for its $100B Vision Fund and is negotiating with the sultanate of Oman for an investment of several billion in the fund  —  Vision Fund staff hustles to keep up with frantic pace of deal making by CEO Masayoshi Son  —  SoftBank Group Corp …
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Sources: Facebook told FTC it's ready for more privacy oversight like quarterly privacy safeguards reports approved by CEO, review of new products before launch  —  The concessions could accompany a multi-billion dollar fine from the Federal Trade Commission, which opened its probe last year.
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft announces Azure SQL Database Edge, which will run on compute-constrained devices, and new AI, mixed reality, and IoT capabilities powered by Azure  —  A couple days ahead of Build 2019, Microsoft is showcasing some new AI, MR, IoT and blockchain capabilities powered by Azure …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTube says it will make all of its original content free this fall in a strategy that its CBO says is in opposition to what other media companies are doing  —  - YouTube Renews Kevin Hart Comedy Series, Sets Maluma and Paris Hilton Documentaries, Lollapalooza Live-Streaming Deal
Paris Martineau / Wired:
Online extremism researchers face a similar toll on their mental health as content moderators, but, without anonymity, their work leaves them open to harassment  —  A COUPLE OF hours after the Christchurch massacre, I was on the phone with Whitney Phillips, a Syracuse professor whose research focuses …
Mijente:
Document from May 2017 shows ICE used Palantir's software to target and arrest parents and other relatives of unaccompanied minors crossing the US-Mexico border  —  The data-mining firm Palantir played a key role in federal immigration efforts to target and arrest family members of children crossing …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Dark web marketplace Wall Street Market, whose admins exit-scammed users of $14.2M+ in cryptocurrency, seized by German police and other international agencies  —  Wall Street Market seized by law enforcement agencies from Germany, the US, the Netherlands, and Romania.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify spotted testing “Your Daily Drive,” a personalized playlist featuring short podcast episodes mixed in with curated music, to positive initial reactions  —  Spotify was recently spotted testing a new personalized playlist — the first one to mix music and podcasts, customized to user's musical tastes.
Chris Zacharias:
A group of YouTube engineers warned IE6 users ten years ago, without permission, that the browser would not be supported, contributing to its demise  —  The bittersweet consequence of YouTube's incredible growth is that so many stories will be lost underneath all of the layers of new paint.
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Facebook bans Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, Laura Loomer, Louis Farrakhan, and others from Facebook and Instagram, citing dangerous individuals and orgs policy  —  Milo Yiannopoulos and Louis Farrakhan have been banned as well  —  Facebook today removed Louis Farrakhan, Alex Jones …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini  —  Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator.  Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
Codegen:
Ship with AI: The Future of Coding is Here  —  Use natural language in Slack to trigger real PRs, docs, dashboards, infra & more.  Codegen connects GitHub, Linear, Notion, and beyond.
Zoho:
Guide to Google Business Profile Optimization (Part 3)  —  Your Google Business Profile can do more than just exist.  It can attract.  When set up and optimized the right way, it becomes a powerful magnet …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
Tesla Launches Its Robotaxi
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Grit:
GitLab's CEO on Why the Next Great Developer Might Not Write Code | Bill Staples
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world's most popular products | Peter Deng
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
BG2 Pod:
Coatue Pt2. Open AI's Kevin Weil Dives into All Things ChatGPT
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Joe Hudson - The Leadership Coach Sam Altman and Top AI Teams Trust
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:50 PM ET, May 3, 2019.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Wall Street Journal:
Bloomberg: