Techmeme
August 23, 2019, 1:15 PM

Top News

Financial Times:
Sources: at least three of Facebook's Libra backers are discussing how to distance themselves from the project amid increasing regulatory scrutiny  —  Intensifying regulatory scrutiny of Facebook's Libra digital currency has spooked some of the project's early backers, with at least three privately discussing …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google Photos can now search for text that appears in user images with its optical character recognition filter  —  Google Lens has a powerful optical character recognition (OCR) filter that can pull text from any image.  Available in Google Photos, the backup service this month is adding the ability to search for text in images.
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Google says it has shut down 210 YouTube channels after it found they had been tied to misinformation about Hong Kong protesters  —  KEY POINTS  — In a blog post Thursday, Google said it axed more than 200 YouTube channels due to misinformation around Hong Kong protests.
Wall Street Journal:
Investigation finds 4,152 items on Amazon that were declared unsafe by federal agencies, are deceptively labeled, or are banned by regulators  —  Just like tech companies that have struggled to tackle misinformation on their platforms, Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers on its site
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Strategy Analytics: US users upgrade smartphones after 33 months, 7% plan to spend over $1K on their next purchase, biggest barrier to 5G phones will be price  —  Several reports in the past have linked the increasing prices of smartphones to lengthening iPhone upgrade cycles.
James Loke Hale / Tubefilter:
Report: Facebook has pushed Instagram into doubling the number of ads since last year; Instagram is testing two back-to-back ads in Stories  —  Instagram is about to get even more ads.  —  Beginning this week, the platform is running a test with what it told AdWeek is a “small percentage” of users.
Tony Wan / EdSurge:
Educational robotic toymaker Sphero acquires littleBits, a maker of electronics building kits and instructional resources for kids  —  When Sphero laid off 45 employees in early 2018, the Boulder, Co.-based company explained the difficult decision as an effort to return its focus …
Alison Frankel / Reuters:
Oracle board committee recommends court to proceed with a shareholder lawsuit against Larry Ellison and Safra Catz over the $9.3B NetSuite acquisition in 2016  —  (Reuters) - Shareholder derivative suits exist because corporate directors can't always be trusted to put aside their own interests …
CNBC:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Identity management company Ping Identity files for an IPO; it was sold to Vista Equity for ~$600M in 2016 and is said to be looking for a $2B to $3B valuation  —  Some eight months after it was reported that Ping Identity's owners Vista Equity had hired bankers to explore a public listing …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google's Chrome team proposes new privacy and anti-fingerprinting open standard to make it harder for marketers and advertisers to track users across the web  —  Google today announced a new long-term initiative that, if fully realized, will make it harder for online marketers and advertisers to track you across the web.
Johana Bhuiyan / Los Angeles Times:
Amazon says it will no longer use tips or supplemental earnings to cover promised wages of Flex drivers, who deliver for Prime Now, Fresh, and Whole Foods  —  Amazon delivery drivers were surprised to learn earlier this year that the e-commerce giant would at times dip into their tips to cover their promised wages.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Amazon buys a 49% stake in Future Coupons, which, filings show, may be worth ~$104M, giving Amazon a 3.58% stake in India's No. 2 retail chain Future Retail  —  Amazon, which has invested more than $6 billion in India's growing internet market, just invested a little more as it moves to expand …

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