Techmeme
February 11, 2019, 10:55 AM

Top News

David Pierce / Wall Street Journal:
Hands-on with AR navigation on Google Maps that the company is testing with Local Guides, a group of power users helping Google improve its Maps experience  —  The coming Google Maps augmented-reality navigation feature will look through your phone's camera to figure out where you are and show you where you are going.
Will Knight / MIT Technology Review:
Trump to sign American AI Initiative executive order that will prioritize federal funding for AI, create resources for AI researchers, establish standards, more  —  Artificial intelligence may have been invented in the United States, but other nations, including China, Canada, and France …
Charlie Osborne / ZDNet:
US Army starts deploying FLIR's Black Hornet nano-drones that measure 6.6" across, weigh less than 33 grams, and provide HD photos and live video for soldiers  —  Black Hornets are nano-drones able to perform reconnaissance during combat operations.  —  The US Army aims to give almost …
Kate Losse / New Republic:
While tech companies' mission statements claim their work has a higher purpose, CEOs also keep them vague so employees can't use them to make concrete demands  —  Tech workers are using company mission statements to hold their CEOs accountable.  —  Companies in Silicon Valley are wonderfully fond …
Mark Suster / Both Sides of the Table:
VCs raised $55B in 2018, similar to what was raised in 1999, but most of the increased funding went into growth rounds, which are effectively private IPOs  —  I've heard a lot of people question whether there is too much money in venture capital chasing too few great deals.
Reuters:
Autonomous vehicle startup Nuro says it has raised $940M from SoftBank's Vision Fund, valuing the company at $2.7B  —  (Reuters) - Autonomous technology startup Nuro said on Monday it raised $940 million from SoftBank Group Corp, which valued the Silicon Valley-based company at $2.7 billion.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Q&A with Zynga's CEO on the once-beleaguered game company's turnaround, as key acquisitions and the shift to mobile overcome declining Facebook and web games  —  Zynga went public in 2011 and it grew quickly on the strength of social games like FarmVille.  But it hit the skids in 2013, and it began going downhill.
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
PerimeterX, which protects websites from bot attacks, raises $43M Series C led by Scale Venture Partners  —  We know by now that modern website attacks are typically automated, as armies of bots knock on doors until they inevitably find vulnerabilities and take advantage.

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