Techmeme: Florida DMV earned $77M+ in fiscal 2017 from sales of driver and ID cardholder information to 30+ private companies, including data brokers like Acxiom (Adam Walser/WFTS)

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July 15, 2019, 8:30 AM

Top News

Dan Strumpf / Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Huawei plans hundreds of layoffs at Futurewei Technologies, its US R&D subsidiary, which employs about 850 people in research labs across the US — Cuts are expected to affect workers at U.S.-based R&D subsidiary Futurewei Technologies — Huawei Technologies Co …

More: CNET, Engadget, Reuters, IT PRO, Phandroid, CNBC, New York Times, The Malaysian Reserve, Neowin, The Hill, SlashGear, SiliconANGLE, Pandaily, The Next Web, Android Central, TechNode, KrASIA, Gizmodo, The Verge, and Bloomberg. Tweets: @jkylebass

Mark Dent / Wired:

A look at Rockdale, Texas, where Bitmain planned to build the world's largest bitcoin mining facility, and how it all went wrong after bitcoin prices plunged — In 1952, The Saturday Evening Post christened Rockdale, Texas, “The Town Where It Rains Money.”

More: Crowdfund Insider. Tweets: @wired

Keiko Morris / Wall Street Journal:

Despite Amazon's NYC HQ2 retreat, tech giants like Google, Facebook, and even Amazon still seek to rent millions of square feet and employ thousands in New York — Facebook, Google, Uber and Amazon embrace Manhattan as an East Coast hub — Big technology companies are doubling …

Tweets: @mkink, @aoc, @lawrence, @profgalloway, @anandwrites, @gardmaf, and @technyc

Adam Walser / WFTS:

Florida DMV earned $77M+ in fiscal 2017 from sales of driver and ID cardholder information to 30+ private companies, including data brokers like Acxiom — LAKELAND, Fla. — A local woman is blaming the state government for an onslaught of robocalls and direct mail offers …

More: WXYZ-TV and Boing Boing

Tweets: @dhh, @chrismessina, and @sarahintampa

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Anvyl, which sets up cameras and sensors in factories to let brands see their product being built and help optimize their supply chains, raises $9.3M Series A — Growing D2C brands face an interesting challenge. While they've eliminated much of the hassle of a physical storefront …

More: PYMNTS.com and Redpoint Ventures

Andrew Liptak / The Verge:

Microsoft Word for Android has been installed over 1B times; Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and OneDrive each have 500M+ installs on Android, and Outlook has 100M+ — Other Microsoft Apps have hit 500 million installs — Microsoft recently hit a particularly notable milestone …

More: Android Police, Firstpost Tech, Softpedia News, Memeburn, and MSPoweruser. Tweets: @nixcraft

Josh Kaplan / Slate:

A look at how surveillance is becoming more prevalent with almost nothing restricting how it is used, as automatic license plate reader software becomes cheaper — Cheap surveillance software is changing how landlords manage their tenants and what laws police can enforce.

Thomas Brewster / Forbes:

How Avast, an antivirus company founded in 1988 in Czechoslovakia, survived competition with McAfee and Symantec, to become a global cybersecurity powerhouse — On the rooftop terrace of the five-star Hotel U Prince, Pavel Baudis surveys the city he's lived in for most of his 59 years.

Tweets: @forbes

Paul Sullivan / New York Times:

How a tax loophole lets tech workers and investors who obtained stock while a company was valued under $50M make millions on stock gains tax-free — When Kay Luo joined LinkedIn in 2006, she received a grant of shares with a value of 12 cents each. The company went public in 2011 at $45 a share.

Joshua Franklin / Reuters:

Sources: Vista Equity Partners raises $850M for a second fund focused on early-stage enterprise software companies — (Reuters) - U.S. private equity firm Vista Equity Partners has raised $850 million for a second fund dedicated to investing in early-stage enterprise software companies …

Tweets: @trengriffin

Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:

Real estate computer vision startup Matterport to acquire AI startup Arraiy, which automates special effects processing and has raised $13.9M — Real estate computer vision platform startup Matterport is set to acquire Arraiy, an AI startup aiming to automate special effects processing in film.

Zen Soo / South China Morning Post:

Chinese bike-sharing startup Hellobike is challenging Ofo and Mobike with a focus on smaller cities and a $145M joint venture for battery-swapping stations — Shanghai-based firm will offer a range of two-wheeler options, including bicycles as well as electric bikes and scooters Shanghai-based Hellobike …

More: TechCrunch

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:30 AM ET, July 15, 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.

From Mediagazer

The Guardian:

Sources: the Foreign Office has asked the BBC World Service to draw up a budget of up to £70M a year lower than the BBC management says it needs

Anthony D'Alessandro / Deadline:

Sony Pictures' Motion Picture Group Chairman and CEO Tom Rothman signs a multiyear contract extension, making him the longest-serving film chief in Hollywood

Murray Stassen / Music Business Worldwide:

WMG launches the WMG Pulse app in beta to let artists and their teams access real-time information about streaming performance and more across various platforms

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More News

Reuters:

A look at UK-based autonomous driving startups Oxbotica, FiveAI, and Wayve, which are focusing on EU-specific challenges to compete with better-funded US rivals

Bloomberg:

Source: James Murdoch has invested $20M in The Void, a startup that has launched immersive, interactive VR venues in 11 cities around the world

Tweets: @caseynewton, @newsynick, @charliefink, and @business

Eileen Brown / ZDNet:

Report: ~54M data workers, a quarter of knowledge workers globally, waste 44% of their time each week because of lack of collaboration, knowledge gaps, and more

Tweets: @alteryx

Zen Soo / South China Morning Post:

China Internet Report 2019 shows the scale of 5G infrastructure plans across the country, huge untapped potential for e-commerce in lower-tiered cities, more

More: South China Morning Post and South China Morning Post

Tweets: @w4ynesun and @scmpnews

Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch:

Germany-based Staffbase, a mobile-first employee communication and experience platform, raises $23M Series C, bringing its total raised to $35M

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Pipefy, which is developing a process pipeline management platform for enterprise clients like IBM, raises $45M Series B, bringing its total raised to $65M

More: PR Newswire, The Rio Times, FinSMEs, and PE Hub Blog

Earlier Picks

Kalev Aasmae / ZDNet:

A look at Estonia's four and half year old e-residency program, which now has 55,000 e-residents and is unlikely to attain its original goal of 10M by 2025

South China Morning Post:

Profile of Meiya Pico, which claims a 40% share of the digital forensics market in China and which is believed to be linked to a spy app used by Chinese police

AJ Dellinger / Engadget:

Online education platform K12.com has left 7M records, including name, email, age, what school the student attends, and authentication keys, exposed online

More: Comparitech. Tweets: @hadip

Zachary Crockett / The Hustle:

A look at a community of “sweepers” who mastered the art of winning online sweepstakes using tools like sweepstakes aggregators and automated form fillers

Tweets: @contestqueen

Karen Chiu / Abacus:

Facial recognition software maker Megvii branches out into dog tracking, says its app can use a phone camera to identify dogs by their snouts, with 95% accuracy

More: The Verge

Nilay Patel / The Verge:

Facebook has done nothing but behave badly from inception, yet it has received only slaps on the wrist by authority figures, while being rewarded by the market