Techmeme
December 11, 2017, 8:05 PM

Top News

TechCrunch:
Apple confirms Shazam acquisition; sources say deal was for about $400M, and Snap and Spotify also expressed interest  —  Dec 11, 2017, 3:59 pmDec 12, 2017, 12:38 am  —  After we broke the story last week that Apple was acquiring London-based music and image recognition service Shazam, Apple confirmed the news today.
James Vincent / The Verge:
Ex-Facebook VP of user growth and Social Capital CEO says social media is “destroying how society works” and leads to “no civil discourse, no cooperation”  —  ‘No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth.’  —  Another former Facebook executive …
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission:
SEC chairman Jay Clayton releases statement on cryptocurrencies, says ICOs effective for raising funds “whether they represent offerings of securities or not”  —  SEC Chairman Jay Clayton  —  The world's social media platforms and financial markets are abuzz about cryptocurrencies and “initial coin offerings” (ICOs).
Bloomberg:
Microsoft releases a free preview of its Quantum Computing Development Kit, which includes the Q# programming language, compiler, and simulator  —  Software giant releases a quantum programming language and simulator, but still has no working computer  —  In the race to commercialize …
Stan Higgins / CoinDesk:
Restaurant review startup Munchee halts ICO after SEC investigation, which said in cease-and-desist order that the firm's tokens were unregistered securities  —  A California-based company has refunded a $15 million initial coin offering following an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Serena Saitto / The Information:
Sources: neighborhood social network Nextdoor has raised $75M in new funding at a valuation higher than previous round's $1.1B valuation in 2015  —  Nextdoor, the social media platform for city neighborhoods, has raised $75 million at a valuation above the $1.1 billion level it reached …
Peter Rudegeair / Wall Street Journal:
Financial-tech startup Affirm says it's raised $200M led by Singaporean sovereign-wealth fund GIC; source says at a valuation between $1.5B and $2B  —  Battling larger players getting into its core business of lending to consumers for retail purchases  —  Financial-technology startup Affirm Inc …
More: TechCrunch
TechCrunch:
An unofficial, knockoff version of the MyEtherWallet digital wallet app became the third most popular paid app in the finance category on the iOS App Store  —  An app masquerading as MyEtherWallet.com, one of the internet's most popular services for storing ETH and other crypto coins …

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
Introducing AI Forms: Create optimized forms with AI in Zoho Forms  —  The future of form creation isn't coming, it's here.  Forget everything you thought you knew about building online forms.
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 12/20 - Gemini Flash Thinking
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:05 PM ET, December 11, 2017.

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

Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:

Earlier Picks

Wall Street Journal: