Techmeme
June 12, 2018, 4:25 PM

Top News

Dan Primack / Axios:
Sources: e-scooter company Bird is seeking to raise ~$200M in new funding at a $2B valuation; just three months ago the startup raised at a $300M valuation  —  E-scooter company Bird is seeking to raise around $200 million in new funding at a $2 billion valuation, according to multiple sources.
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Bloomberg:
Apple changed App Store rules last week to ban iOS developers from making databases of users' address book info and limit what can be shared with third parties  —  - iPhone maker bans developers building address book databases  — Facebook scandal shows risk of sharing data on users' friends
Brad Sams / Thurrott.com:
Internal document: Microsoft is planning for the next Xbox console release to arrive in 2020  —  While Microsoft may have been founded as being a software company, there is no question about it that they are a hardware company too.  With the Surface family, the Xbox, and peripherals …
Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
Instagram adds shopping tags directly into Stories, so now users can tap a shopping bag icon to learn more about buying a particular item  —  Instagram's shoppable tags are about to pop up in Stories.  The company first started testing the feature back in 2016 with a limited set of 20 partners.
Siobhan Hughes / Wall Street Journal:
Bipartisan group of senators move to stop Trump's deal to give ZTE a lifeline amid US export ban, by adding ZTE export ban as amendment to defense spending bill  —  White House sent top official to Capitol Hill to lobby against bipartisan effort to reverse pact to revive the Chinese telecommunications company
Reid Wilson / The Hill:
Amid Amazon pressure, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and city council president Bruce Harrell say they will repeal the business “head tax” law that passed weeks ago  —  Just weeks after passing a new tax on big businesses, Seattle political leaders signaled late Monday they would reverse course and repeal it.
Richard Nieva / CNET:
Congress releases Facebook's written responses to follow-up questions from Mark Zuckerberg's April testimony; Facebook says it received 2,000+ questions  —  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg answered a lot of questions when he testified before Congress in April.
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Large funding rounds for Bird and Lime suggest strong economics, which means the potential for building moats for dockless scooter startups are relatively weak  —  As I understand it, the proper way to open an article about electric scooters is to first state one's priors …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Uber unveils Uber Lite, a low-data app just 5MB in size for developing markets that shows maps only on request, coming to India first  —  “The next hundreds of millions of riders for us are going to come from outside of the United States", Uber's head of rider experience Peter Deng tells me.
Josef Adalian / Vulture:
Inside Netflix's original content efforts as it spends $8B this year: “It's 70 percent gut and 30 percent data”, says Ted Sarandos  —  “What do you think about gas in the tank for the long term?” asks Cindy Holland, Netflix's vice-president of original content.
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Swedish video-based call-a-doctor service Kry raises $66M Series B led by Index Ventures to finance further expansion in Europe  —  Swedish telehealth startup Kry has closed a $66 million Series B funding round led by Index Ventures, with participation from existing investors Accel, Creandum, and Project A.
Christina Rogers / Wall Street Journal:
Argo AI, which received $1B from Ford and works on automated driving, says it has ~330 staff, up from under 12 last year, by hiring from Apple, Uber, and others  —  Equity stakes in a fast-growing startup and a link to a big auto maker are helping recruit engineers and robotics researchers
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
Vietnam's new cybersecurity law raises concerns about restricting free speech, also requires foreign internet companies to store user data locally  —  Big tech firms including Google, Facebook and Twitter have expressed major concern after Vietnam's government passed a law that promises …

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