Techmeme
February 7, 2019, 5:10 PM

Top News

BBC:
Germany orders Facebook to stop combining data from WhatsApp, Instagram, and third-party sites with data in a user's main Facebook account without their consent  —  Germany's competition authority has told Facebook it can only continue gathering so much data about users from beyond its app and website if it gets individuals' consent.
Manish Singh / VentureBeat:
News aggregator Nuzzel sold to Scroll, which is building a news subscription service; Nuzzel founder Jonathan Abrams and COO Kent Lindstrom to leave the company  —  News aggregator Nuzzel has found a new home and leadership and is undergoing some product changes.
Jason Hiner / CNET:
Google Fiber to shut down in Louisville on April 15 after an experimental “nanotrenching” technique to deploy fiber in trenches only two inches deep, failed  —  Google's trick to more rapidly and cheaply deploy its super-speedy Google Fiber project has hit a wall …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Twitter reports Q4 revenue of $909M, up 24% YoY, ad revenue of $791M, up 23% YoY, net income of $244M, and MAUs of 321M, down by 9M YoY; stock closes down 9%+  —  After strong results from Facebook and Snap this quarter, all eyes were on Twitter to see if the other big …
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
Apple releases iOS 12.1.4 with a fix for the Group FaceTime bug, says a security audit of FaceTime revealed a bug in Live Photos on FaceTime, which it has fixed  —  Apple has turned its Group FaceTime feature back on following the release of iOS 12.1.4 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
Stephen Nellis / Reuters:
Sources: Apple has moved its modem engineering unit to its in-house hardware technology group led by Johny Srouji, Apple's SVP of hardware technologies  —  Apple Inc has moved its modem chip engineering effort into its in-house hardware technology group from its supply chain unit …
Dami Lee / The Verge:
Spotify's new Terms of Service, which go into effect on March 1, will give Spotify the authority to immediately terminate accounts that use ad blockers  —  Cracking down on ad blockers  —  Spotify is now explicitly banning ad blockers, as stated in an updated Terms of Service policy sent out today.
Victoria Song / Gizmodo:
Microsoft introduces background blur feature to Skype, which uses AI to detect the user's hair, hands, and arms, and blur distracting objects in the background  —  Slobs of the world, don't work too hard KonMari-ing your apartment or office ahead of your next important Skype call.
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.
Alex Heath / Cheddar:
TikTok hires Vanessa Pappas, who was YouTube's Global Head of Creative Insights, as its first-ever General Manager for the US  —  TikTok, the Chinese-owned company that has quickly become one of the hottest apps in North America, has hired a veteran YouTube executive to oversee its U.S. operations.
Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE:
Microsoft joins Google, Facebook, and Arm as a member of the OpenChain Project, which aims to standardize open-source software licensing  —  Microsoft Corp. wants to support more standardization of open-source software licensing, so today it's putting its weight behind the OpenChain Project as its latest platinum member.
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Gong.io raises $40M Series B led by Battery Ventures, to enhance CRM tools with its natural language processing tech  —  With traditional CRM tools, sales people add basic details about the companies to the database, then a few notes about their interactions.
Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch:
Cluno, which lets users lease a car for an all-inclusive monthly fee, raises $28M Series B to invest in its app and develop an API for car dealers  —  Cluno, the Munich startup providing what it calls a “car subscription” service, has raised $28 million in Series B funding.
More: FinSMEsThanks:@sohear

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
State of AI: Adoption, Challenges and Recommendations  —  Examining the current state of AI, the key challenges organizations face, and practical recommendations for utilizing AI integration alongside other best practices.
SignalFire:
SignalFire raises another $1 billion to back applied AI startups  —  We build AI too.  It tracks 650M tech employees so we can help companies with recruiting and GTM across enterprise, infra, healthcare, security, and consumer.
Zoho:
How to turn employees into your brand's biggest supporters  —  Turning your employees into your brand's biggest advocates is one of the most powerful ways to grow your brand.  When employees feel connected to your mission …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
Zuck Trying To Make Fetch Happen
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Hard Fork:
Is Google Breaking Up? + Seasteading Is Back + Tool Time
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Blake Scholl (Founder and CEO, Boom Supersonic) on Why Supersonic Flight Failed & How Boom is Bringing it Back
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
BG2 Pod:
Tariffs, Free Trade, Export Controls, H20 & Rare Earth Ban
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Great Chat:
Founders need prenups, too
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:10 PM ET, February 7, 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.

More News

Earlier Picks

Joseph Cox / Motherboard:
Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch: