Sources: Facebook is planning to launch its own cryptocurrency and a digital payments system in about a dozen countries by Q1 2020
Facebook is finalising plans to launch its own crypto-currency next year. — It is planning to set up a digital payments system in about a dozen countries by the first quarter of 2020.
SpaceX successfully launches first batch of 60 Starlink satellites of nearly 11,000 planned into a low orbit above Earth to provide global internet connectivity
After two postponements, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket executed a mission that dealt out 60 Starlink broadband data satellites in low Earth orbit.
MacBook Pro keyboard tweaks include a membrane from a new nylon-like material that may better repel dust and minor changes to key switches that register presses
Teardown of the 2019 MacBook Pro 15" with Touch Bar, performed on May 22, 2019.
Multiple sources and emails describe how Snap employees used internal tools like SnapLion to access user data several years ago, before Snap restricted access
Multiple sources and emails also describe SnapLion, an internal tool used by various departments to access Snapchat user data.
A distorted video of Speaker Pelosi, in which her speech is made to appear slurred, has 2M+ views on Facebook; YouTube says it has removed uploads of the video
Distorted videos of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), altered to make her sound as if she's drunkenly slurring her words …
Source: Amazon is working on a wearable voice-activated health and wellness device that works with a mobile app and can recognize human emotions
- Described as a health product, it would work with a mobile app — Machines that can understand emotions are a sci-fi staple
AT&T says customers can now pay their mobile bills in cryptocurrency via BitPay
Cryptocurrency is taking another step towards the mainstream as mobile carrier AT&T announced it would accept payments in crypto today, according to a release from the company.
Source: Snap is in talks to license catalogs of Sony Music, Universal Music, and Warner Music, which will allow Snapchat users to include songs in their posts
Snap wants to up Snapchat's music game. — The company has been in negotiations with music companies including the big three …
Chinese travel platform Mafengwo, which offers editorial content, bookings, and travel merchandise, raises $250M Series E led by Tencent Holdings
Mafengwo, a Chinese travel website, announced today it has raised a $250 million Series E led by Tencent Holdings. — Subscribe to the Crunchbase Daily
Google says it has partnered with delivery services including DoorDash and Postmates to let users order food via Google Search, Maps, or Assistant in the US
French fries, lettuce wraps, massaman curry, chicken wings, cupcakes—I could go on. When I was pregnant with my son last year, my cravings were completely overpowering.
Hacker breaches Perceptics, which makes license plate readers for cities and the US government, dumps internal files on the dark web; Perceptics confirms breach
Perceptics confirms intrusion and theft, stays quiet on details — Exclusive The maker of vehicle license plate readers used extensively …
Twitter permanently bans Brian and Ed Krassenstein, who frequently shared anti-Trump sentiments, alleging they ran fake accounts and purchased fake interactions
Ed and Brian Krassenstein are banned for life after ‘operating multiple fake accounts and purchasing account interactions,’ a Twitter spokesman said.
Google adds group video calls for up to eight people to its Duo video calling app for iOS and Android users worldwide
Google's Duo video call app today introduced group video calls for up to 8 people for iOS and Android users worldwide. At launch, Duo group video calls will not be available …
Lime shuffles leadership, with co-founder Brad Bao taking over as CEO from co-founder Toby Sun, who will now focus on R&D COO Joe Kraus promoted to president
Lime cofounder Brad Bao is stepping in as CEO, replacing his cofounder Toby Sun.LIME — Scooter startup Lime is shuffling …
Automattic acquires Prospress, the company behind WooCommerce Subscriptions and other automated tools; the 20-person Prospress team will join Automattic
Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Longreads, Simplenote and a bunch of other cool things, is acquiring a small startup called Prospress.
SecurityScorecard report analyzing US political party cyber defenses finds DNC has made improvements following 2016 hacks but still lags behind RNC
Personal data leaks, poor protection of logins, and other gaps still leave major parties vulnerable. — In a study of US and European …
As Twitter tests an increased ad load, users report a higher number of spammy or malicious promoted tweets
Twitter is running a test that has increased the number of promoted tweets showing up in people's timelines — and it has resulted in a range of user complaints about their new prevalence …
Sensor Tower: Valve's Steam Link reaches 2M+ installs on Android and iOS, with 330K+ downloads on iOS in its first week, 71% of which were from China and Japan
A year after it was initially rejected for release on the App Store, Valve's Steam Link app, which enables computer gamers using …
Facebook releases an update on enforcing its community standards, saying it banned 2.19B fake accounts in Q1 2019, up from 1.2B in Q4 2018
Zuck just gave a long answer to why he thought FB shouldn't be broken up. He started with the idea that FB has lots of competition. Then said its size is actually helpful.Zuckerberg: We spend more on ...
Yandex launches a new delivery service that lets users tell a restaurant what to cook, even if not on the menu, initially available in Moscow and St. Petersburg
- Yandex expanded to food delivery after 2017 deal with Uber — App tells a restaurant what to cook even if not on the menu
Q&A with Neal Mohan, YouTube's chief product officer, about how the service deals with objectionable content, YouTube remaining an open platform, and more
A Q&A with Neal Mohan, YouTube's chief product officer. — YouTube, the world's largest video site, has 2 billion users. Tweets: @mhbergen and @pkafka Tweets: Mark Bergen / @mhbergen : This @pkafka s...
Samsung researchers detail a machine learning method that can recreate lifelike motion from just a single image of a person's face
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch :
Self-driving car startup Aurora has acquired lidar company Blackmore, which has raised $21.5M; sources: GM's Cruise was looking at acquiring Blackmore last year
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch :
Instagram says IGTV will now support landscape video, following feedback from creators and users, as the service struggles to gain traction
but still no ads Andrew Hutchinson / Social Media Today : Instagram Adds Support for Landscape Videos in IGTV Josh Constine / TechCrunch : Instagram's vertical IGTV surrenders to landscape status quo ...
Rotten Tomatoes says it will now calculate the Audience Score using only ratings or reviews from users whose ticket purchase has been verified through Fandango
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch :
Snap hires Oona King, most recently Google's director of diversity strategy and a former UK MP, as its first VP of diversity and inclusion
Todd Spangler / Variety :
Software maker Panic unveils Playdate, a Game Boy-like device with a hand crank control and 12 bundled games released over time, coming in 2020 for $149
And It Looks Kind Of Amazing play.date : Panic announces the Playdate® handheld video game system Kyle Orland / Ars Technica : Why the quirky Playdate portable could succeed where Ouya failed Juli Clo...
Shopify quietly acquired Handshake, an e-commerce platform for B2B wholesale purchasing, source says for less than $100M; Handshake was last valued at ~$54M
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch :
Google researchers say they used 2,000 “mannequin challenge” YouTube videos as a training data set to create an AI model for depth prediction from videos
Khari Johnson / VentureBeat :
Coinbase says Coinbase Commerce, its app to help merchants easily accept crypto, has exceeded $50M in transactions since launching in February 2018
Brady Dale / CoinDesk :
GitHub launches Sponsors, a tool that lets users pay their favorite open source contributors; developers can opt in to a “Sponsor me” button on repositories
Funding developers through GitHub Sponsors … Brendan Hesse / Lifehacker : Fund Your Favorite Open-Source Projects Using Github's New Sponsorship Program Tweets: @can : Not sure if this is me being con...
Interviews with Marc Benioff and 18 associates and current and former Salesforce employees show his instinctual and sometimes mystifying M&A strategy
What's Wrong With San Francisco Becky Peterson / Business Insider : Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff reportedly scandalized Cisco's board by video-calling in to meetings … Tweets: Nico Grant / @nicoagrant ...
Square quietly launches an invite-only beta to process payments for some CBD products
Tom Angell / Forbes :
Food delivery app DoorDash raises $600M led by Darsana Capital Partners at a $12.6B valuation, just three months after it raised $400M at a $7B valuation
On the heels of our unprecedented growth … TechCrunch : How to avoid an IPO — Hello and welcome back to Equity … Eliot Brown / Wall Street Journal : DoorDash's Valuation Soars to $12.6 billion as Mo...
Robinhood launches trading for seven cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and ethereum, in New York after receiving a BitLicense from regulators in January
John Biggs / CoinDesk :
Zero, which offers Zero Checking, a FDIC-backed checking account through its app and lets users earn rewards using a Zerocard, raises $20M Series A led by NEA
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch :
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Zoho CRM Plus in 2025: A year of thoughtful CX improvements
2025 marked 11 years of building a customer experience platform designed to support organizations as customer expectations, channels …
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data
Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.