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Techmeme
November 14, 2019, 11:40 AM

Top News

Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Motorola announces a new Razr phone with a 6.2" touchscreen display that folds like a clamshell, launching in January on Verizon in the US for $1,500  —  The Razr returns  —  The Razr is back, but now it's an Android smartphone that can fold in half.  Motorola has officially announced its much-rumored …
Roger Cheng / CNET:
How Motorola created the foldable-screen Razr and why it claims it solved the problems faced by Samsung's Galaxy Fold, by focusing on a hinge design  —  Exclusive: Motorola, in need of a comeback, wants to reignite the excitement over foldables with a phone that's equal parts retro and cutting edge.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is considering bundling News+, Apple TV+, and Apple Music as soon as 2020 to attract subscribers, meaning less money for News+ publishers  —  - Company keeps rights to bundle News+ service with TV+, Music  — Move may woo more subscribers, but lower publishers' News+ cut
Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:
Toronto-based password manager 1Password raises $200M Series A led by Accel, its first external round of funding in its 14-year history  —  1Password, a Toronto-based password manager, announced today it has raised $200 million in a massive Series A funding round that was led by Accel.
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple Research app is now available to download for iPhone and Apple Watch; US users can enroll in three health studies  —  Following the announcement at the September event, the Apple Research app is now available to download for iPhone and Apple Watch.  Users in the United States can sign …
Janko Roettgers / Variety:
Oculus CTO John Carmack says he is stepping down but will remain as a “consulting CTO” and will work on an artificial general intelligence as a personal project  —  One of the driving forces behind Facebook's virtual reality efforts is leaving his post: Oculus CTO John Carmack …
New York Times:
How startups around the world, using SoftBank funds, got contractors like drivers and hoteliers to commit via unsustainable incentives, and then cut them off  —  SoftBank poured money into start-ups that use armies of contractors.  That has upended the lives of drivers, hotel operators and real estate agents around the world.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple Music launches Replay, letting subscribers look back at their favorite music in 2019, similar to Spotify's year-end review, Wrapped, but updated each week  —  Apple Music is taking on Spotify with the launch of a new feature, Apple Music Replay, that will allow subscribers to take a look back at their favorite music from 2019.
George Anadiotis / ZDNet:
Siren, which helps build knowledge graphs from enterprise data, raises $10M Series A led by Atlantic Bridge  —  Siren promises the benefits of knowledge graphs, without the hassle of reinventing your existing data management and infrastructure  —  Graph databases are amazing, but the knowledge graph is in your data already.
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Salesforce says it will use Microsoft's Azure for its Marketing Cloud service, signaling a thaw in a complicated relationship  —  - Salesforce will deploy its Marketing Cloud service on Microsoft's Azure public cloud infrastructure.  — Salesforce already uses Amazon Web Services …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
GitHub announces improvements to code search and notifications and unveils its first native mobile app, available in beta for iOS, with Android app coming soon  —  At its annual Universe conference today, Microsoft -owned GitHub announced a couple of new products, as well as the general availability …
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Report: Google is planning to offer checking accounts to users, in partnership with banks and credit unions, starting as early as next year  —  Google is the latest big tech company to make a move into banking and personal financial services: The company is gearing up to offer checking accounts to consumers …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Punchh, which provides app-based loyalty cards and other analytics services for retailers and restaurants, raises $40M at an estimated valuation of $300M+  —  E-commerce accounts for around 11% of all retail sales in the US, but it's growing much faster than brick-and-mortar sales …
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Roger Cheng / CNET:
Jonathan D. Epstein / The Buffalo News:
ACV Auctions, a Buffalo-based online marketplace for used cars, raises $150M Series E at a valuation of more than $1.5B  —  The ACV Auctions office.  (Derek Gee/Buffalo News)  —  Buffalo has its first confirmed unicorn.  —  Only this one isn't a horse with a horn on its head.
More: FinSMEs
Tim Hardwick / MacRumors:
Apple says the updated Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR will ship in December, but does not provide an exact date  —  Apple has officially announced that its long-awaited Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR will be available starting in December.  —  Apple also announced that the new ‌Mac Pro‌ …
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Facebook says requests from governments for user data in H1 2019 were up 16% over H2 2018 to 128,617, the highest on record, led by 50,741 demands from the US  —  Facebook's latest transparency report is out.  —  The social media giant said the number of government demands for user data increased …

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Earlier Picks

Ashlee Vance / Bloomberg:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Aliya Chaudhry / The Verge:
Financial Times:
Bloomberg: