Techmeme
December 13, 2018, 3:05 PM

Top News

Ina Fried / Axios:
Apple announces a $1B Austin campus initially for 5,000 workers, new offices in Seattle, San Diego, and Culver City, and expansions in several other US cities  —  Apple plans to build a new $1 billion campus in Austin, Texas, adding thousands of jobs, while also setting up new large offices in Seattle …
Arielle Pardes / Wired:
Postmates announces Serve, an autonomous rover launching soon in LA, and says it now averages 4M deliveries per month in 550+ cities  —  HANGING ON THE wall of Postmates' stealth R&D laboratory, there's a framed photo of an iconic scene from Star Wars, Luke Skywalker bent down beside R2D2.
Ryan Randazzo / Arizona Republic:
Police in Chandler, AZ have documented 20+ incidents in the past two years where people vandalized Waymo's autonomous vehicles and harassed their test drivers  —  Police have responded to dozens of calls regarding people threatening and harassing Waymo vans.  —  CONNECT
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Robinhood launches checking and savings accounts in the US with a 3% interest rate and no minimum balance or fees for overdrafts or foreign transactions  —  Robinhood is undercutting the big banks by forgoing brick-and-mortar branches with its new zero-fee checking and savings account features.
Corbin Davenport / Android Police:
Amazon starts selling the Chromecast Ultra and third-gen Chromecast, nearly a year after it promised to sell Chromecast devices again  —  Amazon pulled the Chromecast from its online store in 2015, after it instated a new rule that only streaming devices that supported Prime Video could be sold.
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
YouTube's annual Rewind video received 10M dislikes in about eight days, overtaking Justin Bieber's Baby to be the most disliked video  —  Creators help explain why  —  To say that this year's YouTube Rewind didn't go over well with the YouTube community would be quite an understatement.
Amy Gesenhues / Marketing Land:
Facebook says it is rolling out Watch globally on desktop and Facebook Lite and expands availability of Ad Breaks, 15-second in-stream ads, to 14 more markets  —  Says more than 75 million daily Watch visitors spend, on average, more than 20 minutes on the video platform.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Brave ad-blocking browser moves to Chromium codebase, now supports Chrome extensions but says it won't integrate any Google-based features  —  Brave replaces ambitious Muon interface and goes full Chromium.  Gets 22 percent speed boost in the process.  —  Privacy-focused browser Brave …
J. David Goodman / New York Times:
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
South African fintech startup Jumo, which specializes in microloans, savings, and insurance, adds $12.5M to $52M round from September as it expands into Asia  —  Months after a big round, African fintech startup Jumo has pulled in a fresh $12.5 million to add more fuel for its expansion into Asia Pacific.
More: jumo.world
Joshua Goldman / CNET:
Samsung upgrades its two-in-one Notebook 9 Pen with a new 15-inch option, updated S Pen, and a promise of 15 hours of battery life, coming in 2019  —  With its updated Notebook 9 Pen two-in-one laptop, Samsung is targeting creative professionals who want the flexibility of both a laptop …
Gillian Brockell / Washington Post:
Tech companies should automatically turn off irrelevant ads based on info users share, such as ads for baby gear when a pregnant person has a stillborn child  —  Dear Tech Companies:  —  I know you knew I was pregnant.  It's my fault, I just couldn't resist those Instagram hashtags — #30weekspregnant, #babybump.
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Square says Appointments, its service for SMBs like salons to schedule appointments and take payments in advance, will now integrate with Instagram and Google  —  Square is perhaps better known for its core payments product that allows any merchant to accept card payments through a mobile device.
Kate Clark / TechCrunch:
Online design marketplace Minted, which sells stationery, art, and home decor, raises $208M Series E led by Permira, bringing total raised to $300M  —  Minted, a company we've been covering on this site for a decade-plus, plans to double down on its wholesale and licensing business …

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