Techmeme: Q&A with NYT's Taylor Lorenz on how she covers internet culture and how online harassment of women is fueled by closed, moderated spaces like Facebook groups (Taylor Lorenz/New York Times)

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December 16, 2019, 12:15 AM

Top News

Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg:

Palantir wins a one year $111M contract to connect US Army's operations systems into a single dashboard; Palantir reportedly took over Project Maven — - Company beats Microsoft, Ernst & Young, Accenture, Deloitte — Peter Thiel-backed company is also working on Project Maven

More: Business Insider, SiliconANGLE, and Beyond Search

Tweets: @blmohr, @oliviasolon, @mollymckew, @jasonlk, @beckpeterson, and @impcapital

Tom Simonite / Wired:

Q&A with Google's head of AI Jeff Dean on using ML for better chip design, ML energy use and climate change, and acting on Google's AI ethics principles — Jeff Dean says the company is trying to build systems that have general smarts, rather than highly specialized intelligence.

More: VentureBeat and Slashdot

Tom Simonite / Wired:

Researchers: deep learning, which led to great advances in AI over the past decade, is nearing its limits and new approaches are needed for further progress — Leaders in artificial intelligence warn that progress is slowing, big challenges remain, and simply throwing more computers at a problem isn't sustainable.

More: MIT Technology Review. Tweets: @wired, @alessianigretti, @juansequeda, and @joemckendrick

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

Source: Uber is in advanced talks to sell Uber Eats India to local rival Zomato in a deal that values Uber Eats India at ~$400M — Uber is in final stages to close a deal to sell its food delivery platform UberEats' India business to local rival Zomato, as the American ride-hailing giant looks …

More: SiliconANGLE and Business Today. Tweets: @jonrussell

Taylor Lorenz / New York Times:

Q&A with NYT's Taylor Lorenz on how she covers internet culture and how online harassment of women is fueled by closed, moderated spaces like Facebook groups — Taylor Lorenz, who writes about internet culture, explains how she keeps her finger on the pulse.

Tweets: @petersuderman, @joshuarush, and @theannagat

See also Mediagazer

Corbin Davenport / Android Police:

Google halts Chrome 79 rollout on Android, which was ~50% complete, after the misconfigured update wipes user data from many apps using Android's native WebView — Chrome 79 started rolling out on desktop and mobile platforms a few days ago. Unfortunately, a bug has cropped up that wipes data …

More: Engadget and ZDNet

Tweets: @seldo and @edbott

Brady Dale / CoinDesk:

Keybase CEO says an onslaught of spammers derailed an airdrop of Stellar coins for Keybase users, initially pitched as a ~$120M giveaway — Spammers started showing up on Keybase as soon as Stellar announced a giant airdrop on the encryption app. They went away as soon as word went out that the free money era was over.

More: CryptoSlate, BitcoinExchangeGuide, ZDNet, and Decrypt

Tweets: @coindesk and @vboykis

Reuters:

Argo AI CEO says the company plans to charge per mile for using its autonomous tech in commercial vehicles; sources: Ford and VW each own around 40% of Argo AI — PITTSBURGH/DETROIT (Reuters) - Sky's the limit optimism about self-driving cars is giving way to tougher questions …

New Orleans Times-Picayune:

New Orleans declares state of emergency after the city was hit by a cyberattack on Friday, says it has not yet found evidence that data was compromised — Collin Arnold, the Director of the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, speaks during the press conference …

Ian Allison / CoinDesk:

Australian Securities Exchange is working with Digital Asset to convert part of its settlement process to blockchain, invests in the startup's $35M Series C — Digital Asset (DA) has raised $35 million in Series C funding, signaling a comeback for the enterprise blockchain startup a year …

More: TokenPost and The Block. Tweets: @coindesk

Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:

Airbnb rival WhyHotel, which operates temporary hotels out of unrented luxury apartment buildings, raises $20M Series B, bringing total raised to $35M — Airbnb has emerged as the single greatest disruptor of the $500 billion hotel industry over the past decade.

More: PR Newswire, AmericanInno, Washington …, Technical.ly DC, PitchBook, PhocusWire, and FinSMEs

Jonathan Vanian / Fortune:

Q&A with Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins on the company's new business line, specialized networking chips, which it's now selling to Facebook, AT&T, Microsoft, others — Cisco is best known for selling routers and switches, but now the networking giant is expanding into the highly-competitive business of selling computer chips.

More: Network World, Wall Street Journal, FierceTelecom, TechRadar.com, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Register, SiliconANGLE, ZDNet, Silicon Valley Business …, and Computer Business Review. Tweets: @fortunemagazine

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From Mediagazer

Andrew Trunsky / New York Times:

A profile of Natalie Winters, a Steve Bannon protégée, War Room reporter, and Piers Morgan Uncensored contributor, who now has a White House press pass

Harshita Mary Varghese / Reuters:

Warner Bros. Discovery says John Malone is not seeking re-election to the board of directors and will instead take on the role of chairman emeritus

Julian Clover / Broadband TV News:

A group of current and former BBC World Service journalists warn that cuts to the international service risk fracturing “the core identity of the World Service”

More News

The Economic Times:

Flipkart and Walmart invest in Ninjacart, a Bangalore-based fresh produce supply chain startup; sources had said earlier that Walmart could invest up to $50M

More: Entrepreneur, The Financial Express, Firstpost, The Indian Express, The Hindu BusinessLine, YourStory.com, Business Insider, Moneycontrol, Livemint, PYMNTS.com, Inc42 Media, and Quartz

Tweets: @ninjacart and @investindia

Michael Hytha / Bloomberg:

China-based autonomous air taxi company EHang closed at $12.49 in its first day of trading on Thursday, down one cent from its US IPO price after raising $40M

Michelai Graham / Technical.ly DC:

Arcadia, an app that can help US consumers lower their electricity bills by connecting their accounts to clean energy options, raises $30M Series C led by G2VP

More: Greentech Media and FinSMEs

Business Wire:

Imply, a real-time analytics company, raises $30M in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz's Late Stage Venture Fund, bringing its total funding to $45.3M

More: Imply, SiliconANGLE, Business Insider, FinSMEs, and Pulse 2.0. Tweets: @implydata

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

Carsome, a Malaysia-based marketplace for trading used cars, raises $50M Series C from MUFG Innovation Partners and others to grow in Southeast Asian markets

More: NST Online, The Business Times, KrASIA, and DealStreetAsia

Zen Soo / South China Morning Post:

Grab says that food and financial services, which have better margins than ride-hailing, now generate more than 50% of its gross merchandise volume

Tweets: @mdudas and @trengriffin

Earlier Picks

Brian Merchant / Harper's Magazine:

A look at the rise of murder-for-hire marketplaces on the dark web, the vast majority of which are schemes to pilfer money from gullible users

More: Dill & Fennel Newsletter. Tweets: @harpers, @adamshermanesq, @davidparis, @bcmerchant, @craigmod, and @codinghorror

Amy X. Wang / Rolling Stone:

Music streaming subscription prices have remained flat for a decade, amid competition from tech giants like Apple that can operate their music arms at a loss

More: Applied Science. Tweets: @perreau, @trengriffin, @jessicalessin, @brianmcc, @johnwilson, and @paulkrugman

Alex Wellerstein / Restricted Data:

Creator of NUKEMAP, which lets users visualize effects of nuclear explosions, explains why it isn't using Google Maps anymore, citing API stagnation and pricing

More: 9to5Google. Tweets: @wellerstein, @dancow, and @carnage4life

Simone Stolzoff / The Atlantic:

A graduate of Slack's Next Chapter initiative, which helps former prison inmates land tech jobs, recounts how he managed to land a full-time job at the company

Tweets: @csinschools, @andrewnebus, @sameerpatel, @ckinstitute, @gregghoush, @tlm, @simonestolzoff, and @theatlantic. Thanks:@simonestolzoff

Jeff John Roberts / Fortune:

Researchers claim they used 3D masks and photos to deceive facial recognition systems used by Alipay, WeChat Pay, Schiphol Airport, and train stations in China

More: International Business Times and The Verge

Tweets: @briansolis, @boycotthegemony, @privacyproject, @bruno_j_navarro, and @jeffjohnroberts