Sources: Apple has set a budget of ~$1B to procure and produce original content over the next year, could acquire and produce as many as 10 TV shows
Company immediately becomes a considerable competitor in crowded market for original shows — Apple Inc. AAPL 1.09% has set a budget …
Sources: Chris Saad, head of Uber's developer platform, leaves company after nearly two years, says cost of losing Kalanick as CEO will be incalculable
Saad has been at Uber since November 2015. — Chris Saad, a product manager of Uber's developer platform, is leaving the company after close to two years, sources tell Recode.
Texts between Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski surface in Waymo-Uber court case, covering thoughts on Tesla, Otto acquisition, DMV probe, more
Mark Harris / IEEE Spectrum :
Google Allo arrives on the web via Chrome and currently only pairs with Android phones
Google's consumer-facing chat application Allo, a successor of sorts to Gchat, is today available on the web for desktop users. The service, which lets you chat with friends while taking advantage …
Sources: SoftBank, Didi, Dragoneer, General Atlantic in exclusive talks with Uber, may buy up $12B in stock in two-part deal that hinges on Benchmark dispute
SoftBank, Didi, General Atlantic and Dragoneer discuss funding — Investors could spend as much as $12 billion in the deal
Apple, Snap, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Cisco, and Verizon among firms who filed amicus brief for cellphone location privacy case going before US Supreme Court
In a new amicus brief, tech and telecom companies say law enforcement should have to clear a higher bar to obtain location data.
Crowdfunding sites including GoFundMe, Kickstarter, and Indiegogo disallow crowdfunding for Charlottesville murder suspect, with multiple campaigns halted
Sheila Dang / Reuters :
Neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer moves to dark web after GoDaddy and Google bans, sharing its .onion address
Adi Robertson / The Verge :
Amazon expands cash rewards for high-performing Alexa apps beyond games to lifestyle, productivity, education apps, and more
Amazon today announced a new program that gives developers a way to earn money for their Alexa skills - the voice apps that run on smart speakers like the Echo, and other Alexa-powered devices.
Reddit bans a subreddit after uproar led by r/AgainstHateSubreddits, and Facebook bans several group pages after Charlottesville attack
The Charlottesville tragedy has highlighted neo-Nazi communities across the internet. Reddit and Facebook are beginning to take action.
HTC filing with FCC reveals Google Pixel 2 will have an “Active Edge” branded squeeze feature
While this year's Pixel XL successor widely rumored to be manufactured by LG, the smaller Pixel is expected to be again made by HTC. Recent leaks points to the device looking near identical …
Social virtual reality platform AltspaceVR, which had raised $15M, is not shutting down as previously announced, thanks to new interest from “third parties”
What is dead in VR may never die, perhaps? — Social VR startup AltspaceVR may not be shutting down after all.
Liftoff report finds subscription based apps in the middle price range of $7 to $20 have the highest conversion rates
Blame the sunk cost fallacy — A new report from Liftoff, a Silicon Valley-based mobile app marketing and retargeting firm, says that subscription-based apps may do better …
DDoS protection company Cloudflare, under fire for continuing to service Daily Stormer, defends its hands-off, content-neutral policy
Keith Collins / Quartz :
In the wake of a killing after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, tech firms are setting aside content neutrality in the fight against online hate
> http://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
Sources: MongoDB has filed confidentially for IPO, has submitted S-1, aims to go public before year end
MongoDB has filed confidentially for IPO, TechCrunch has learned. The company has submitted an S-1 filing in the past few weeks and is aiming to go public before the end of the year.
Ukrainian hacker identified as “Profexer”, who created malware used in DNC hacking, has turned himself in and become a witness for the FBI
KIEV, Ukraine — The hacker, known only by his online alias “Profexer,” kept a low profile. He wrote computer code alone in an apartment … Tweets: @nytimes , @asluhn , @ericgeller , @kenvogel , and @a...
Facebook will let users give friends the option of donating to a US nonprofit on their birthday
SEC filing shows Apple raised CAD $2.5B in its debut Canadian bond sale to fund buybacks and dividends
Niall McGee / The Globe and Mail :
Source: Lyft spending ~$10 per new user, down from $70 in fall 2016; App Annie says Lyft's US app downloads grew 115% while Uber's grew only 25% YoY in Q1 2017
The smaller startup is acquiring customers at a lower cost and closing the gap of its big bad rival. — WRITE A COMMENT
Sling TV now lets you watch with Chrome on Windows and Mac, with Cloud DVR support for Chrome coming later
Chris Welch / The Verge :
Chinese drone maker DJI working on mode to let pilots disconnect from internet during flights, weeks after US Army ended DJI use due to “cyber vulnerabilities”
Alwyn Scott / Reuters :
Chinese telecom group China Unicom is raising $11.7B from Alibaba, Tencent, Didi Chuxing, and others
Qualcomm unveils new Spectra depth-sensing camera tech, expected to be part of the next flagship Snapdragon Mobile Platform
Cherlynn Low / Engadget :
Instagram gets threaded comments, and Facebook News Feed gets UI tweaks like bubble-style comments
Josh Constine / TechCrunch :
Facebook Messenger's AI assistant M expands to Australia, Canada, South Africa, and UK, but third-party chat extension suggestions still only available in US
Khari Johnson / VentureBeat :
Facebook improves Camera with ability to go Live, shoot two-second GIFs, and make full screen text posts; all can be shared to Story, Messenger, and News Feed
Josh Constine / TechCrunch :
LinkedIn quietly debuts Active Status feature, on by default, that shows if a user is online
Paul Armstrong / Forbes :
China's key advantages in race to build AI: the government's financial support, ability to mandate foreign firms' cooperation, and pervasive data on citizens
Bloomberg :
Sources: Blackstone ends talks for stake in NSO Group, the Israeli mobile surveillance firm that sells infamous Pegasus spyware, found in use against activists
Jim Finkle / Reuters : Tweets: @milesjkenyon Tweets: Miles Kenyon / @milesjkenyon : “NSO's spyware has a documented abuse potential and the list of cases continues to grow” says @CitizenLab researche...
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