Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Site News
Techmeme
February 6, 2019, 10:15 PM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Sponsor Events Newsletter

Top News

Peter Kafka / Recode:
Spotify buys podcast producer Gimlet Media, sources say for ~$230M, and Anchor, a startup which makes it easier for users to record and distribute podcasts  —  Daniel Ek says he wants to spend up to $500 million on acquisitions this year.  —  Spotify is a streaming music company that wants to become a podcast company, too.
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
For Spotify to succeed as a podcast app, it needs to clearly separate podcasts from music, help users discover podcasts better, and allow creators to monetize  —  Some suggestions for improvement  —  Spotify announced today that the company plans to spend up to $500 million on podcast-related acquisitions.
More: Spotify and Fortune
Stuart Dredge / Music Ally:
Spotify reports Q4 revenue of ~€1.5B, up 30% YoY, operating profit of €94M, says it has 207M MAUs, up 29% YoY, including 96M premium subscribers, up 36% YoY
Joseph Cox / Motherboard:
Leaked documents show around 250 bounty hunters and related businesses had access to AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint customer location data for at least five years  —  In January, Motherboard revealed that AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint were selling their customers' real-time location data …
Kara Swisher / Recode:
Facebook's top global communications executive, Caryn Marooney, is leaving after eight years; Debbie Frost, Facebook's longest-serving PR exec, is also leaving  —  After a bruising year for the social media giant, longtime communications head Caryn Marooney is helping search for her replacement.
Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch:
Following a lawsuit, Instacart CEO apologizes for changes that meant some tips were used to boost base pay, says affected workers will get retroactive pay  —  On the heels of a recently-filed class action lawsuit over wages and tips, as well as drivers and shoppers speaking …
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Investigation: some iPhone apps use Glassbox's analytics SDK to record user interactions without permission, and recordings sometimes don't mask sensitive data  —  And there's no way a user would know  —  Many major companies, like Air Canada, Hollister and Expedia, are recording every tap and swipe you make on their iPhone apps.
Austin Carr / Bloomberg:
Interviews with 49 people illuminate Wisconsin's disastrous deal with Foxconn, championed by Trump, that saw $4.5B in promised incentives with little return  —  “This is the Eighth Wonder of the World.”  —  So declared President Donald Trump onstage last June at a press event at Foxconn's …
Motherboard:
Inside the illicit world of “iCloud unlocking”, where cybercriminals trick iPhone owners or Apple staff into removing iCloud accounts to resell iPhones  —  In a novel melding of physical and cybercrime, hackers, thieves, and even independent repair companies are finding ways to “unlock iCloud” from iPhones.
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
A security researcher who has shared iOS flaws before demos a macOS Keychain exploit, won't share details with Apple because of the lack of a macOS bug bounty  —  Security researcher Linuz Henze has shared a video demonstration of what is claimed to be a macOS Mojave exploit to access passwords stored in the Keychain.
Nico Grant / Bloomberg:
Inside Oracle's ad software arm Data Cloud, built with ~$3B of acquisitions since 2014, that has reported disappointing financials and seen layoffs  —  Oracle Corp. has spent five years and billions of dollars getting really good at following people around the internet.
Ryan Felton / Consumer Reports:
Survey of 110 hospitals and five agencies from 47 US cities: 1,500+ e-scooter-related injuries since late 2017; quick spread of e-scooters surprised some cities  —  A Consumer Reports investigation finds 1,500 e-scooter injuries across the country, and many hospitals still don't track them
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft says Build 2019 will take place from May 6 to May 8, with registration opening on February 27  —  Registration for this year's Microsoft Build developers conference opens February 27.  And Build, again, is going head-to-head with Google's I/O developer confab.
Julie Verhage / Bloomberg:
Sources: no-fees mobile bank Chime is raising $300M at a $1.5B valuation, up from a $500M valuation in May 2018  —  Chime, a financial technology startup that offers online banking services, is close to raising $300 million at a $1.5 billion valuation, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Tweets: @alex.  Thanks:@seriouslyrick
Manish Singh / VentureBeat:
WhatsApp says it bans about 2M fake or abusive accounts each month, 75% of them without manual intervention, 20% of them at the time of registration itself  —  WhatsApp today outlined how it is tackling abuse and spread of false information on its instant messaging platform as its largest market …

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.
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.
Zoho:
5 common accounting mistakes  —  This is a guest post by Yaali Bizappln Solutions.  A lot of businesses manage their customers and finances on separate platforms.  This disconnect often leads to missed invoices …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Sponsor Techmeme
Techmeme Ride Home:
 Fri. 11/22 - An LLM Siri But... Only The Year AFTER Next?
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.
Sponsor this podcast
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:15 PM ET, February 6, 2019.

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.

From Mediagazer

Matthew Keys / The Desk:
DirecTV terminates its Dish acquisition after a group of Dish creditors rejected a modified bond exchange offer

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
A growing number of podcasters, including Tim Ferriss, are moving away from interviews to monologues or co-hosts, as some well-known guests can be overexposed

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
A New York judge finds Sirius XM liable for a difficult subscription cancellation process; Sirius says it will appeal but abide by a new “click-to-cancel” rule

More News

Jeff Stone / CyberScoop:
Researchers discover e-ticketing flaw at 8+ airlines, including Southwest, that would let hackers access sensitive info by intercepting emails to travellers

Earlier Picks

Julia Reda:
Weeks after EU member states failed to find common ground on the Article 13 proposal, negotiations are back on toward a final vote after Germany reverses stance
Apple:
Angela Ahrendts to leave Apple in April after five years, as Apple names 30-year company veteran Deirdre O'Brien SVP of Retail + People reporting to Tim Cook
Jeremy Burge / Emojipedia:
Unicode Consortium finalizes its emoji list for 2019, including 230 new emojis like “yawning face” and “pinching hand”, likely coming to major platforms soon
Robert Hackett / Fortune:
Zcash discloses a flaw, first discovered in-house last March and fixed in October, that may have allowed “infinite” counterfeiting
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Sponsor Events Newsletter