Techmeme
June 12, 2018, 6:50 PM

Top News

Sara Salinas / CNBC:
Judge rules that AT&T can complete its $85B merger with Time Warner, did not impose conditions on the approval  —  - The Justice Department sued last year to block the merger, citing concerns that AT&T, owner of satellite television provider DirecTV, could charge rival distributors …
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
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:
Bryan Menegus / Gizmodo:
Seattle's city council votes 7-2 to repeal its “head tax” law, less than a month after unanimously passing the contentious tax on big business  —  Less than a month after unanimously passing a contentious tax on big business, Seattle's city council has voted to repeal the so-called “head tax.”
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.
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 …
Khadeeja Safdar / Wall Street Journal:
Facebook says it's rolling out a feature to let users rate e-commerce businesses and may ban or reduce ads for those with poor feedback  —  New feature lets shoppers share their experiences; negative feedback could lead to bans  —  Facebook Inc. FB 1.29% is cracking down on e-commerce businesses …
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
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
French startup Exotec Solutions raised a $17.7M Series B led by Iris Capital for its automated warehouse robots  —  French startup Exotec Solutions raised a $17.7 million funding round (€15 million) from Iris Capital with existing investors 360 Capital Partners and Breega also participating.
More: Tech.eu and PE Hub Blog
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 …
Gordon Gottsegen / CNET:
Valve announces a new Discord-like chat platform called Steam Chat, now in beta  —  Valve is making it easier to chat with your friends while playing your favorite Steam games.  The gaming company just announced Steam Chat, which is currently in beta for anyone to try.
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.

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