Techmeme
May 15, 2020, 8:10 PM

Top News

Axios:
Facebook to buy Giphy, keep its branding, integrate with Instagram; sources say the deal is worth ~$400M, while Giphy was valued at ~$600M in its latest round  —  Facebook has agreed to buy Giphy, the popular platform of sharable animated images, Axios has learned from multiple sources.
Owen Williams / OneZero :
Facebook's purchase of Giphy gives FB insight into how and where gifs are shared outside of its own apps, including device IDs and keystrokes in Giphy tools  —  GIPHY joins Facebook's data collection arsenal  —  Facebook announced on Friday that it will buy Giphy, a popular GIF search engine …
Reuters:
US bans sales to Huawei of semiconductors and semiconductor designs made abroad using certain US software and technology  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Friday moved to block shipments of semiconductors to Huawei Technologies from global chipmakers, in an action that could ramp up tensions with China.
Global Times:
China signals it is ready to retaliate for US' Huawei ban by launching investigations or imposing restrictions on companies like Qualcomm, Cisco, and Apple  —  China is ready to take a series of countermeasures against a US plan to block shipments of semiconductors to Chinese telecom firm Huawei …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: DOJ and state AGs are likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google as soon as this summer, focusing on its ad business and search dominance  —  Both the federal and state investigations are focused on Google's ad business  —  WASHINGTON—Both the Justice Department and a group …
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Sources: Clubhouse raised a Series A round from a16z, which includes $10M in primary capital and at least $2M in secondary shares, at a $100M valuation  —  Clubhouse is a voice-based social media app with about 5,000 beta test users.  Prospective listeners have to sign up for a waitlist via Google form …
Ben Lovejoy / 9to5Mac:
Netflix begins restoring full quality streaming in Europe; Apple TV+ restored 4K streaming in late April  —  Netflix is gradually lifting coronavirus-related streaming quality limits in Europe.  Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video has all complied with a European Commission request …
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Members of the anti-vaccine community are experienced at exploiting weaknesses of social media platforms and are primed to sow doubts about a COVID-19 vaccine  —  Social media is already filling up with misinformation about a Covid-19 vaccine, months or years before one even exists.
Saheli Roy Choudhury / CNBC:
Singapore state investor Temasek joins Libra, along with cryptocurrency investor Paradigm and private equity firm Slow Ventures  —  - Singapore state investor Temasek is one of the latest organizations to join the Facebook-backed digital currency project libra.
Debby Wu / Bloomberg:
Foxconn reports profit decline of 89% YoY to $70M in Q1 with revenue down 12% YoY, as the coronavirus froze much of its China production and demand slumped  —  - Hon Hai's net income dived 89% in virus-hit first quarter  — Apple's main partner drives home extent of global malaise
Tim Hardwick / MacRumors:
Spotify restores web player support for Safari after removing it in 2017  —  Spotify users can once again use Safari to access the streaming service's web player, following the restoration of support for Apple's browser this week after over two-and-a-half years of incompatibility.

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
Introducing AI Forms: Create optimized forms with AI in Zoho Forms  —  The future of form creation isn't coming, it's here.  Forget everything you thought you knew about building online forms.
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Mon. 12/23 - The Revenge Of Google Glass?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:10 PM ET, May 15, 2020.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Stratechery:

Earlier Picks

Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Wall Street Journal:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Sarah Frier / Bloomberg: