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October 20, 2021, 11:30 PM
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| Bloomberg: |
Sources: PayPal has approached Pinterest about an acquisition, potentially valuing it at $39B; Pinterest stock had dropped 16% this year but is up 10%+ today — PayPal Holdings Inc. is exploring an acquisition of social media company Pinterest Inc., people with knowledge of the matter said, Bloomberg News reports.| Emily Birnbaum / Politico: |
Source: Pierre Omidyar's philanthropic organization Luminate handles Frances Haugen's PR in Europe; Omidyar donated $150K to Whistleblower Aid in 2020 — Support from eBay-founder-turned-tech-critic Pierre Omidyar is helping Frances Haugen take on one of the world's most powerful companies.
More:
Omidyar Network and The Verge
| Casey Newton / Platformer: |
Sources: Mark Zuckerberg has not settled on a new name for Facebook, which could be announced as early as Monday — See you Monday! — Facebook is changing its name. Perhaps you heard. The news was broken by Alex Heath of The Verge on Tuesday night, and I've since confirmed it with sources of my own.
More:
Bloomberg, BuzzFeed News, The Guardian, Input, VICE, Fortune, FrontPageTech.com, Common Dreams, Insider, TNW, Vox, Quartz, Gizmodo, New World Notes, and The Verge
Tweets: @caseynewton, @matt_levine, @jack, @bcmerchant, @duty2warn, @duty2warn, @amrith, @steveschmidtses, @steveschmidtses, @steveschmidtses, @steveschmidtses, @calcsam, @steveschmidtses, @timsweeneyepic, @carlquintanilla, @stevekovach, @jason, @tallneil, @ron_miller, @dcwomenkicknass, @levynews, @ryanlawler, @amyklobuchar, @jonstewart, @marshablackburn, @martinsfp, @levie, @caseynewton, @wongmjane, @nycsouthpaw, @aoc, @suhail, and @jyarow
| Alex Heath / The Verge: |
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Bloomberg, United States Senate, Mashable, Cointelegraph, Al Jazeera, CNN, MarketWatch, GameSpot, Engadget, Wired, afrotech.com, CNBC, MobileSyrup, Washington Post, GameRevolution, PCMag, The Information, Coinspeaker, Pixel Envy, MacDailyNews, Redmond Pie, GamesIndustry.biz, americanbanker.com, iPhone Hacks, IGN, SiliconANGLE, and Social Media Today
Tweets: @alexeheath, @udiwertheimer, @samidh, @inafried, @jack, @udiwertheimer, @reckless, @jjvincent, @caseynewton, @bigblackjacobin, @sheeraf, @anth0888, @ldignan, @katienotopoulos, and @danyork
| Tom Warren / The Verge: |
Microsoft begins letting Windows 11 beta testers try Android apps from the Amazon Appstore, starting with 50 apps including Kindle, Apple Music, and Signal — Beta Channel testers get access first — Microsoft is now allowing Windows 11 testers to try out Android apps.
Source:
Windows Blog. More:
Windows Blog, Amazon Developer Services, OSnews, MobileSyrup, TNW, Windows Central, BleepingComputer, HotHardware.com News, Liliputing, Engadget, Tom's Guide, GeekWire, SlashGear, BetaNews, Pocket-lint, TechCrunch, techadvisor.com, Gizmodo, Digital Trends, Wccftech, TechRadar, PCWorld, Neowin, MSPoweruser, IEEE Spectrum, Ars Technica, and TechSpot
| Tom Warren / The Verge: |
More:
Tom's Hardware, Pureinfotech, TechPP, Windows Latest, Windows Central, OnMSFT.com, and XDA Developers
Tweets: @kevinctofel and @tomwarren
| Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post: |
US Commerce Department announces rules banning the export or resale of hacking tools to China, Russia, and other countries of concern — The Commerce Department on Wednesday announced a long-awaited rule that officials hope will help stem the export or resale of hacking tools to China …
Source:
U.S. Department of Commerce. More:
Gizmodo, The Register, CyberScoop, Nextgov, The Hill, Protocol, The Record, Engadget, and TechCrunch
Tweets: @commercegov, @bing_chris, @nicoleperlroth, @jsrailton, @nakashimae, @jsrailton, @msamymacpherson, @janlemnitzer, and @ericgeller
| Manish Singh / TechCrunch: |
Twitter acquires London-based Sphere, which develops a group chat app and has raised $30M to date — Twitter has acquired London-based Sphere, which operates an eponymous groups chat app, the latest in a series of recent moves from the social network as it looks to aggressively broaden and improve its product offerings.
More:
Sphere, Adweek, and Social Media Today
Tweets: @nickdaloisio, @investmenttalkk, @richlightshed, @tsuvik, @elliotturn, @ruskin147, and @thekenyeung
| Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: |
Internal email: Apple will test unvaccinated corporate staff each time they enter offices starting Nov. 1, and asks US staff to report vaccine status by Oct. 24 — - The company is still stopping short of requiring the shots — Unvaccinated retail staff will be asked to test twice a week
More:
iThinkDifferent, CNET, AppleInsider, iClarified, MacRumors, and 9to5Mac
Tweets: @markgurman and @markgurman
| Aisha Counts / Protocol: |
Since May, Google says it has blocked 1.6M messages and restored ~4,000 YouTube influencer accounts affected by a phishing campaign offering fake collaborations — A network of Russian-speaking hackers are phishing YouTube influencers with fake collaboration offers in order to hijack their accounts …
More:
The Keyword, Wired, The Hill, Security Affairs, and Threatpost
Tweets: @t_gidwani, @ashl3y_shen, @anttitikkanen, @lanceulanoff, and @shanehuntley
| Todd Spangler / Variety: |
Spotify partners with Shopify to let artists list merch on profiles for $29/month to $299/month, starting in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — Spotify on Wednesday announced a new partnership with ecommerce provider Shopify to let artists list merchandise directly on their profiles …
More:
Shopify, TechCrunch, Spotify for Artists, MobileSyrup, Tubefilter, and PYMNTS.com
| ABC News: |
Trump announces the Trump Media & Technology Group and TRUTH Social, a social network coming in Nov. to “stand up” to Big Tech, in the App Store for preorder — The former president has been banned from several platforms. — Silenced by many major platforms …
More:
Financial Times, Reuters, CNET, Bloomberg, Salon, Insider, The Hill, Raw Story, Newsweek, and Mediaite
Tweets: @reallizusa, @danprimack, @santucci, @cd_hooks, @alexstamos, @williamturton, @frankluntz, @noupside, @noupside, @iansherr, @danprimack, @killedbygoogle, @pkafka, @danprimack, @donie, @donie, @reckless, and @pkafka
| Sophia Yan / Telegraph: |
Yahoo Finance's mobile app, which posts news from other outlets along with market data, has disappeared from the App Store in China — The Telegraph can exclusively reveal the move, as authorities seek to clamp down on those circumventing existing censorship rules| CoinDesk: |
Bitcoin crosses $66K, an all-time high, after the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF rose by nearly 5% on the NYSE — The latest rally appears fueled by the successful debut on Tuesday of the first U.S. bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund. — Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency … | Cecilia Kang / New York Times: |
District of Columbia AG Karl Racine adds Mark Zuckerberg to an ongoing privacy lawsuit, which began in 2018 following the Cambridge Analytica scandal — The District of Columbia case, which grew out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, could expose the chief executive to financial and other penalties.| Ron Miller / TechCrunch: |
Hex, which simplifies storing and sharing large data sets with integrations for Snowflake, BigQuery, and others, raises a $16M Series A led by Redpoint Ventures — Data is everywhere inside organizations, and employees are increasingly trying to find ways to put it to work to improve business outcomes.
More:
FinSMEs. Tweets: @wesmckinn, @itunpredictable, @ttunguz, @redpointvc, @sarahcat21, and @dhaliwas
| Sylvia Varnham O'Regan / The Information: |
Internal memo: Facebook has quietly killed the “Hey Facebook” wake word for Portal, as customers were confused by the phrase and it was affecting usage — Facebook has quietly abandoned the phrase “Hey Facebook” as a way for customers of its Portal video-chat device to start …
Tweets: @amir and @grahamstarr
| Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch: |
Superplastic, which owns an animated collab house of “synthetic superstars” on social media, raises a $20M Series A, bringing its total funding to $38M — A company from the creator of Ello and Kidrobot is announcing a new $20 million funding round to build out an imagined virtual world populated … | James Vincent / The Verge: |
A look at Ask Delphi, a research project by the Allen Institute for AI that offers answers to ethical dilemmas, often with bewildering responses — A fascinating project that's best understood as a cautionary tale — Got a moral quandary you don't know how to solve? Fancy making it worse?
More:
Stealth Optional and USA Today
Tweets: @mtrc, @mtrc, @mtrc, @jjvincent, @mtrc, @thedextriarchy, @_espers_, @janellecshane, @jjvincent, @workingdog_, @cohenrap, @mtrc, @liweijianglw, @ruchowdh, and @funk___engine
| Stephen Nellis / Reuters: |
SAP's Qualtrics reports Q3 revenue of $271.6M, up 41% YoY, subscription revenue of $220.3M, up 49% YoY, Q4 projected sales of $297M, vs $264M est.; stock up 5%+ — Business software firm Qualtrics International (XM.O) on Wednesday raised its full-year sales forecast above analyst estimates …
More:
Qualtrics, SiliconANGLE, ZDNet, and Yahoo Finance
| Benedict Evans / @benedictevans: |
[Thread] Analysis of FTC's report on Big Tech's startup M&A between 2010 and 2019: half of the deals were <$10M, most had <10 people and were US-based, and more — A common talking point in tech anti-trust: big tech companies have made hundreds of acquisitions in recent years, and almost none were reviewed, let along stopped. So, last month the FTC released some actual data, for Google, Apple, FB, Amazon and Microsoft. 🧵 https://twitter.com/...| Adi Robertson / The Verge: |
Facebook will start demoting all Groups content from users who have violated policies elsewhere on the site, and will let admins review flagged content — It's also got a new moderation tool for admins — Facebook will start demoting all Groups content from people who have violated its policies elsewhere across the platform.
More:
TechCrunch, CNET, and Engadget
| Paul Sawers / VentureBeat: |
Honeycomb, which develops a software observability tool used by companies including Stripe and Slack, raises a $50M Series C led by Insight Partners — Honeycomb, a software observability platform used by developers at companies such as Stripe, Slack, Heroku, and LaunchDarkly, has raised $50 million in a series C round of funding.
More:
Insider, Honeycomb, and PR Newswire
| Harry McCracken / Fast Company: |
Profile of Asana as it announces an Enterprise Work Graph, Workflow Builder, APIs for integrating with CRM tools, and more — When people first started to take note of a fledgling company called Asana a dozen years ago, the big news was that it had been started by Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz along … | Abner Li / 9to5Google: |
YouTube Music's free tier will transition to audio-only with background listening next month, with videos reserved for Premium subscribers — Starting next month, YouTube Music is getting free background listening in a major revamp of the streaming service's ad-supported tier.
More:
Android Central
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