Sources: Uber has a program to identify enforcement officers and stealthily prevent them from successfully hailing cars, to help drivers avoid sanctions
SAN FRANCISCO — Uber has for years engaged in a worldwide program to deceive authorities in markets where its low-cost ride-hailing service …
Uber VP of product and growth Ed Baker has resigned after 3+ years; an anonymous email to Arianna Huffington and reporters included complaint about his conduct
His departure is tinged by allegations made about him to those investigating the ride-hailing company's loose culture.
NBCUniversal invested $500M in Snap IPO as part of a strategic investment and partnership, making it the only US media company with a stake
NBCUniversal, a unit of Comcast and parent of CNBC, invested $500 million in Snap during its IPO as part of a strategic investment and partnership, according to sources.
Sources: Amazon is testing Alexa-powered devices that can make phone calls and act as intercoms, may launch new devices this year
Alexa is popular, but daily usage is key. — Amazon plans to unveil one or more new Alexa-powered devices this year that will allow people to initiate phone calls by voice …
Appeals court invalidates Smartflash patents that Apple was ordered to pay $533M for infringing
Massive verdict would have been largest ever for a non-practicing entity. — It looked like Smartflash LLC had Apple right where it wanted it after a jury awarded the patent-holding company $533 mill...
Researchers uncover PowerShell Trojan that uses DNS queries to get its orders
Delivered by “secure” Word doc, pure PowerShell malware fetches commands from DNS TXT records. — Researchers at Cisco's Talos threat research group are publishing research today on a targeted attack...
Snap joins other recent big exits for Lightspeed, which include Nutanix and AppDynamics; Lightspeed also invested early in MuleSoft, The Honest Company, Affirm
A decade ago, Lightspeed Venture Partners was an obscure firm investing in highly technical startups that were mostly unknown outside of Silicon Valley.
Apple's share of mobile devices shipped to schools has been surpassed by Microsoft and Google in recent years, as cheap Chromebooks and Windows laptops take off
Apple is losing its grip on American classrooms, which technology companies have long used to hook students on their brands for life.
Facebook adds option for Messenger bots to provide persistent menu instead of text entry field, another move away from text-based conversations for chat bots
Messenger bots can prevent people from typing in text to reply and make them use non-native menu buttons instead.
NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke's note to employees: Snap investment “builds on our strategy to drive digital growth for our business”
Peter Kafka / Recode :
White House taps Michael Kratsios, formerly chief of staff at Thiel Capital, as deputy CTO
Peter Thiel has been at Donald Trump's side since the Republican National Convention, guiding the then-candidate on technology policy and brokering a meeting between him and top tech executives.
Hands-on with LG's SteamVR compatible headset prototype, which seems like a strong competitor to HTC Vive
Ben Lang / Road to VR :
Square buys assets of OrderAhead, a service for placing takeout orders at restaurants ahead of time; Square's Caviar launches its own restaurant pickup service
Deal capitalizes on trend of ordering online ahead of time — Caviar, Square's food delivery unit, to incorporate new app
Chevrolet offers customers with OnStar Wi-Fi an unlimited 4G LTE data plan via AT&T for $20 per month
Karl Bode / DSLreports :
Apple temporarily stopped buying cobalt mined by hand in Congo after Sky News news found continuing problems with child labor and harsh work conditions
Todd C. Frankel / Washington Post :
GM's Maven car-sharing service launches monthly car rentals, with a Chevrolet Tahoe for $1.5K or Chevrolet Volt for $1.1K, including parking and insurance
Ken Yeung / VentureBeat :
JD.com agrees to spin off its finance unit, JD Finance, to unnamed investors for ~$2.1B in cash; JD.com will keep 40% of JD Finance's profits in the future
Bloomberg :
JetSmarter, the “Uber for private jets”, wanted to charge a Verge reporter $2K if they didn't publish a positive story about their flight after service demo
We've seen plenty of aggressive requests from companies that want positive coverage, but perhaps none as absurd … Tweets: @candicechoi , @benpopper , @chillmage , @davidmackau , @backlon , and @danawo...
Contact management service Nimble raises $9M Series A led by Imagen Capital Partners
Ron Miller / TechCrunch :
Online lending startup Upstart, founded by ex-Googlers, raises $32.5M Series D and hires ex-Google VP Sanjay Datta as CFO
Cromwell Schubarth / Silicon Valley Business Journal :
Report: WeChat's “mini-programs” are off to a shaky start just one month after launch, with disappointing user traction and unfavorable developer sentiment
Eva Xiao / Tech in Asia : Tweets: @bgurley Tweets: Bill Gurley / @bgurley : Western Internet/Messaging companies may be chasing a perception that isn't real... http://twitter.com/...
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