Techmeme
November 14, 2019, 1:40 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is considering bundling News+, Apple TV+, and Apple Music as soon as 2020 to attract subscribers, meaning less money for News+ publishers  —  - Company keeps rights to bundle News+ service with TV+, Music  — Move may woo more subscribers, but lower publishers' News+ cut
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Motorola announces a new Razr phone with a 6.2" touchscreen display that folds like a clamshell, launching in January on Verizon in the US for $1,500  —  The Razr returns  —  The Razr is back, but now it's an Android smartphone that can fold in half.  Motorola has officially announced its much-rumored …
Roger Cheng / CNET:
How Motorola created the foldable-screen Razr and why it claims it solved the problems faced by Samsung's Galaxy Fold, by focusing on a hinge design  —  Exclusive: Motorola, in need of a comeback, wants to reignite the excitement over foldables with a phone that's equal parts retro and cutting edge.
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple Research app is now available to download for iPhone and Apple Watch; US users can enroll in three health studies  —  Following the announcement at the September event, the Apple Research app is now available to download for iPhone and Apple Watch.  Users in the United States can sign …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google says it is now rolling out support for RCS messages in the Android Messages app to all of its users in the US  —  Google today announced that it is now rolling out to all of its users in the U.S. support for Rich Communication Services messages (you can think of it as the next generation of SMS) …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Instagram says it is expanding its test making Like counts private to the rest of the world beyond Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Italy, and New Zealand  —  Instagram is making Like counts private for some users everywhere.  Instagram tells TechCrunch the hidden Likes test is expanding to a subset of users globally.
Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:
Toronto-based password manager 1Password raises $200M Series A led by Accel, its first external round of funding in its 14-year history  —  1Password, a Toronto-based password manager, announced today it has raised $200 million in a massive Series A funding round that was led by Accel.
Janko Roettgers / Variety:
Oculus CTO John Carmack says he is stepping down but will remain as a “consulting CTO” and will work on an artificial general intelligence as a personal project  —  One of the driving forces behind Facebook's virtual reality efforts is leaving his post: Oculus CTO John Carmack …
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Salesforce says it will use Microsoft's Azure for its Marketing Cloud service, signaling a thaw in a complicated relationship  —  - Salesforce will deploy its Marketing Cloud service on Microsoft's Azure public cloud infrastructure.  — Salesforce already uses Amazon Web Services …
New York Times:
How startups around the world, using SoftBank funds, got contractors like drivers and hoteliers to commit via unsustainable incentives, and then cut them off  —  SoftBank poured money into start-ups that use armies of contractors.  That has upended the lives of drivers, hotel operators and real estate agents around the world.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple Music launches Replay, letting subscribers look back at their favorite music in 2019, similar to Spotify's year-end review, Wrapped, but updated each week  —  Apple Music is taking on Spotify with the launch of a new feature, Apple Music Replay, that will allow subscribers to take a look back at their favorite music from 2019.
George Anadiotis / ZDNet:
Siren, which helps build knowledge graphs from enterprise data, raises $10M Series A led by Atlantic Bridge  —  Siren promises the benefits of knowledge graphs, without the hassle of reinventing your existing data management and infrastructure  —  Graph databases are amazing, but the knowledge graph is in your data already.
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Report: Google is planning to offer checking accounts to users, in partnership with banks and credit unions, starting as early as next year  —  Google is the latest big tech company to make a move into banking and personal financial services: The company is gearing up to offer checking accounts to consumers …
Bloomberg:
Following EU scrutiny, Google to stop sharing info with buyers in ad auctions about the type of content on a page where an ad could appear, starting in February  —  - Search giant to stop sharing some info with buyers in auction  — Google said it took step follow discussions with watchdogs
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Facebook says requests from governments for user data in H1 2019 were up 16% over H2 2018 to 128,617, the highest on record, led by 50,741 demands from the US  —  Facebook's latest transparency report is out.  —  The social media giant said the number of government demands for user data increased …

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Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
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