Techmeme
November 12, 2019, 4:15 PM

Top News

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Instagram debuts Reels, a TikTok-style video remix feature, which lets you make 15-second video clips set to music and share them as Stories, in Brazil  —  Instagram is launching a video-music remix feature to  —  finally fight back against Chinese social rival TikTok.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Facebook unveils Facebook Pay, which will work on Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, to let users shop, donate to causes, send money to friends, more  —  Facebook Pay arrives just weeks after payment companies dropped out of Libra  —  Facebook is launching a new payments system today, appropriately named Facebook Pay.
Alfred Ng / CNET:
Facebook's iOS app accesses the camera as users scroll their feeds; a workaround is to revoke the app's camera permissions; Facebook says it's fixing the bug  —  Some people have complained that their cameras got turned on while they were looking through Facebook's app.
Frank Pallotta / CNN:
Disney+ spokesperson acknowledges service issues on launch day, saying consumer demand exceeded “high expectations”, as users complain that they can't connect  —  New York (CNN Business)Disney+ launched to much fanfare on Tuesday, and then immediately hit some bumps.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget:
Snap Spectacles 3 review: stylish design, sturdy build, comfortable fit, clever and fun 3D filters, convenient video capture, but expensive, not water resistant  —  In case you've forgotten, Snap makes video-recording sunglasses called Spectacles.  The first two iterations didn't do very well …
Reuters:
Microsoft says it will honor California's digital privacy law throughout the US; source: CCPA offers special treatment to “service providers” like Microsoft  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said in a blog post on Monday that it would honor California's privacy law …
Taylor Lorenz / New York Times:
A look at @BallerBusters, an Instagram account that calls out people who pretend to be wealthier than they are to hawk dubious mentorship or online classes  —  It's easy to look successful on Instagram.  Now, getting caught out is easy too.  —  In February, an Instagram account called …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Whoop, which makes fitness trackers and provides performance metrics for athletes, raises $55M Series D, bringing its total raised to $100M+  —  On the heels of Google buying Fitbit for $2.1 billion, another player in wearables and health technology has picked up a big round of growth funding to continue expanding its business.
Michael Hayes / OneZero:
How some police departments in the US conduct facial recognition searches on behalf of other jurisdictions, boosting access to the tech and evading local laws  —  “Do not mention FITlist.”  —  ver the last decade, large police forces in Washington state like the Seattle Police Department …
Bijan Stephen / The Verge:
Twitch Studio, the company's live streaming software, is now in open beta for PC users  —  The streaming site's first software product is now available to everyone  —  Twitch Studio — the broadcasting software the live-streaming site debuted back in August to a select group of users — is now open to the public.
Farah Elbahrawy / Bloomberg:
TruKKer, a UAE-based on-demand trucking platform, has raised $23M Series A led by Saudi Technology Ventures  —  - The $23 million Series A one of the largest on record for MENA  — Trukker founded in Abu Dhabi in 2016 cross-border cargo  —  Trukker, a digital marketplace …
More: wamda
Thomas Ohr / EU-Startups:
CoachHub, the Berlin-based digital coaching platform, raises €10M from existing investors HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, Partech, and others  —  The digital coaching platform CoachHub has raised a €10 million funding round, from existing investors HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, Partech and Speedinvest and new investor RTP Global.
More: Tech.eu and FinSMEs
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Blaize, which custom-designs AI chips with a new graph streaming architecture, emerges from stealth with $87M raised over several rounds  —  There's booming demand for silicon custom-designed to accelerate AI workloads, as the gobs of cash raised by startups like Hailo Technologies, Graphcore, and Untether AI demonstrates.

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