Techmeme: Sources: Apple acquired Platoon, a UK-based startup that uses analytics to source talent like musicians and writers to produce, distribute, and sell their work (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

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December 7, 2018, 7:25 PM

Top News

Nitasha Tiku / Wired:

Microsoft steps up calls for regulation of facial recognition tech; research group AI Now stresses urgency for companies to open their AI algorithms to auditing — AFTER A HELLISH year of tech scandals, even government-averse executives have started professing their openness to legislation.

Kate Conger / New York Times:

Canada argues Huawei CFO committed fraud by misrepresenting a Huawei subsidiary as an independent company, tricking US banks into violating Iran sanctions — VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The reasons that the United States asked the Canadian authorities to arrest a top executive …

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Sources: Apple acquired Platoon, a UK-based startup that uses analytics to source talent like musicians and writers to produce, distribute, and sell their work — Spotify has made some significant moves to bypass record labels and work directly with artists, and there are signs that Apple …

More: Music Business Worldwide, Telegraph, The Verge, MacRumors, CNBC, Apple Must, CNET, iDownloadBlog.com, iPhone Hacks, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, and iPhone in Canada Blog

Tweets: @shellypalmer, @techcrunch, @jonesjourno, and @ingridlunden

Jackson Ryan / CNET:

DeepMind's new AI program, AlphaZero, taught itself to play and beat the world's best AI in three different board games: chess, shogi, and Go — Humans have mostly accepted that they will never be as good at chess as the robots, but now even the robots have to accept they will never be as good as other robots.

Lauren Thomas / CNBC:

Walmart to acquire the assets of Art.com, an online seller of art and wall decor which, a source says, was recently bringing in $300M in sales annually — - Marc Lore, head of Walmart's U.S. e-commerce business, has said the company could one day own upwards of 40 digitally native brands.

More: news.walmart.com, TechCrunch, Reuters, The Business Journals, The Verge, Engadget, PYMNTS.com, Digital Commerce 360, and Business Insider

Tweets: @profgalloway, @artnome, @walmartinc, and @levynews

Reuters:

Sources: Slack has hired Goldman Sachs to lead its IPO, expected in 2019, which it hopes will fetch a valuation of well over $10B — (Reuters) - Slack Technologies Inc, a provider of chat and direct messaging services for businesses, has hired investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) …

More: Fortune. Tweets: @alex

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft says it will rebuild Edge to run on Google's open source Chromium project and will make it available on macOS, Windows 7, and Windows 8 — A Chromium version of Edge will also arrive on Windows 7 and Windows 8 — Microsoft is announcing some significant changes to its Edge browser today.

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

As part of Microsoft's embrace of Chromium, Edge users will get access to Chrome extensions, and EdgeHTML will be replaced by Blink and Chakra with V8

More: VentureBeat, Softpedia News, Digital Trends, Computerworld, and Engadget

Tweets: @ow, @mehedih_, @mehedih_, @gcluley, @om, @epro, and @carnage4life

Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:

Beddit, the sleep tracking company that Apple acquired in 2017, releases Beddit Sleep Monitor 3.5, a $150 sleep monitor for iOS, available in Apple Stores — Earlier this week, Apple received FCC clearance with a new sleep monitor product that looked like an updated version of the Beddit Sleep Monitor that it acquired in 2017.

More: The Verge, CNET, AppleInsider, SlashGear, Business Insider, InvestorPlace, and iDownloadBlog.com. Tweets: @davewiner

Anirban Sen / Livemint:

Andy Rubin's Essential has acquired CloudMagic, maker of the Newton email app that the India-based startup shut down in September — Andy Rubin's Essential Products has acquired CloudMagic less than three months after the startup's founder Rohit Nadhani said its flagship email app Newton Mail was shutting down

More: TechCrunch, Android Authority, The Economic Times, The Verge, Thurrott, Droid Life, and 9to5Google

Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:

Winklevoss' Gemini exchange says it will add support for Bitcoin Cash on December 10, after receiving approval from NY regulator — The Winklevoss-owned Gemini crypto exchange is adding support for bitcoin cash (BCH), the firm announced Friday. — Specifically, the New York-based startup …

More: Gemini and The Block. Tweets: @gemini

Zheping Huang / South China Morning Post:

China has set up the Online Games Ethics Committee, which has reviewed a first batch of 20 games and rejected 9 of them, according to the state broadcaster CCTV — - The recently formed Online Games Ethics Committee has rejected nine of an initial batch of 20 titles it reviewed

More: VentureBeat. Tweets: @zhugeex

Reuters:

EU's technology commissioner: EU should be worried about Huawei and other Chinese tech companies because of the risk they pose to its industry and security — BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union should be worried about Huawei [HWT.UL] and other Chinese technology companies because of the risk …

More: Bloomberg. Tweets: @wsj, @amyfiscus, @suilee, @wsj, @a_lutacontinua, and @noahbarkin

Marrian Zhou / CNET:

FCC to investigate if carriers submitted incorrect coverage maps after an initial review of speed test data suggested significant violations of agency's rules — The federal government keeps a map that highlights areas that have or don't have broadband service.

More: The Verge, ZDNet, Android Authority, Reuters, and FCC. Tweets: @brian_henderson

Katie Collins / CNET:

Italy's competition authority fines Facebook a total of $11.4M for using people's data for commercial purposes in ways that break the country's laws — Italy's Competition Authority on Friday slapped Facebook with two fines that total 10 million euros ($11.4M) for using people's data …

More: The Local. Thanks:@katiecollins

The Information:

Sources: ByteDance, the startup behind popular video app TikTok, is in talks to raise $1.45B for its first venture fund to invest in AI and media content — China's ByteDance, the world's most valuable startup worth $75 billion, is in talks to raise the equivalent of more than $1 billion …

More: TechCrunch and Reuters. Tweets: @madhavchanchani

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From Mediagazer

Axios:

Sources: G/O Media sold business news brand Quartz and commerce site The Inventory to software firm Redbrick, the fourth Quartz ownership change in seven years

Katie Campione / Deadline:

WGA members “overwhelmingly” ratify a new three-year deal with CBS News that includes AI protections and is modeled after a recent ABC News contract

Ella Creamer / The Guardian:

A judicial panel consolidates 12 copyright cases against OpenAI and Microsoft in New York, including cases from Ta-Nehisi Coates, John Grisham, and the NYT

More News

Julia Alexander / The Verge:

Inside the collapse of Defy Media, which raised $70M and oversaw 50+ YouTube creators, including Smosh, many of whom are still owed money

Tweets: @loudmouthjulia, @bmccandless, and @profcarroll

Andrii Degeler / Tech.eu:

Tourlane, a travel booking service that solves the problem of coordinating bookings from different suppliers, raises $24M Series B led by Sequoia Capital

More: EU-Startups, FinSMEs, PhocusWire, and Skift

Saritha Rai / Bloomberg:

SoftBank hires Kirthiga Reddy, former managing director of Facebook India, as the first female partner to manage its $100B Vision Fund

More: TechCrunch and The Economic Times

Facebook: Kirthiga Reddy. Tweets: @danprimack

Astasia Myers / Memory Leak:

In 2018, at least $46.8B has been spent on acquiring open source companies, including IBM's $34B Red Hat purchase and Salesforce's $6.5B MuleSoft buy

Tweets: @astasiamyers

Makena Kelly / The Verge:

FTC's Consumer Protection Bureau head cannot participate in investigations involving 120 companies like Facebook, Equifax, Uber, due to conflict of interest

More: epic.org, Public Citizen, and The Hill

Tweets: @public_citizen, @arevers, @joejerome, @public_citizen, @jason_kint, and @profcarroll

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Since implementing its own screen time tracking tools in iOS 12, Apple has removed some 3rd-party trackers and parental control apps from the App Store

More: Computerworld, iPhone in Canada Blog, and Macworld

Tweets: @ohmdee, @ourielohayon, and @gerritd. Thanks:@ohmdee

Vibhuti Sharma / Reuters:

IBM to sell seven of its software products, including Notes, Domino, BigFix, and Unica, to India-based IT services company HCL for $1.8B

More: IBM, The Register, realstorygroup.com, ZDNet, Light Reading, BloombergQuint, The Economic Times, Seeking Alpha, and Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check. Tweets: @jordannovet

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Google Translate's website, to combat bias, now gives both feminine and masculine translations for some gender-neutral words such as “doctor” in some languages