- JBL’s $250 Google Assistant smart display is now available for pre-order
- LittleBits enlists the Avengers for its latest kit
- Reddit breach exposes non-critical user data
- Boeing’s new R&D center focuses on autonomous flight
- Pico nabs $24.7M to create VR hardware that challenges Facebook, Google
- CBS launches local news streaming services
- Duolingo hires its first chief marketing officer as active user numbers stagnate but revenue grows
- Vizio launches its own streaming service powered by Pluto TV
- What can we learn from the Dixons data breach that blew up after disclosure
- DoorDash CEO Tony Xu to deliver startup lessons at Disrupt SF
- Tesla’s alleged ‘saboteur’ strikes back with defamation suit
- WhatsApp finally earns money by charging businesses for slow replies
- Snapchat launches its first speech recognition lenses
- Samsung thinks the Galaxy Tab S4 can replace your laptop
- Instant Pot teams up with YaDoggie so your pup can eat fresh food
- Price hike for Disrupt SF 2018 passes starts tonight
- Shanghai-based used goods marketplace Xiangwushuo, aimed at swapping items for free, raises $50M Series B led by Sequoia Capital (Sophy Yang/China Money Network)
- Reddit says a few employees had their work accounts compromised via 2FA SMS intercepts, leading to a few systems being compromised and some user data leaking (Christopher Slowe/Reddit)
- Back-to-college tech for minimalists and the over-prepared
- Subscription startup Kidbox launches its own clothing lines
- DoJ has secured arrests of several Ukrainian members of Carbanak group charged with allegedly stealing payment card and other data from US businesses (Reuters)
- Microsoft quietly launches AccountGuard, a pilot program to provide protection to political campaigns and election authorities, starting with US midterms (Catalin Cimpanu/BleepingComputer)
- Formlabs goes unicorn with latest funding round
- On Tesla’s earnings day, watch for these 4 indicators
- Techmeme introduces ads under stories matching news topics that an advertiser wants to target, letting companies automatically "respond" to news (Gabe Rivera/Techmeme News)
- WhatsApp says businesses can now buy ads on Facebook that launch WhatsApp conversations, and it will gradually debut ads in Status, its Stories clone, in 2019 (Josh Constine/TechCrunch)
- SITE NEWS: Automatically respond to news topics on Techmeme with our new contextual ads
- WhatsApp expands business-focused features by adding real-time support, shortcut buttons to start conversations, and more, in an effort to monetize (Shannon Liao/The Verge)
- Chinese regulators to investigate Pinduoduo over media reports of counterfeit goods and intellectual property infringements on the online group buying platform (Reuters)
- Samsung announces Galaxy Tab S4 with 10.5-inch Super AMOLED display, 16:10 aspect ratio, and 64GB or 256GB options for $650+, shipping on August 10 (Chris Welch/The Verge)
- Sources: Southeast Asian ride-hailing company Grab to announce $1B in new funding on top of its previous $1B round from Toyota (Wall Street Journal)
- Snap announces new Snapchat Lenses that respond to English language voice prompts, not movement, rolling out globally today (Swapna Krishna/Engadget)
- France bans the use of smartphones in schools for students up to 15 years old starting in September (ABS-CBN News)
- Despite claiming openness, tech companies seek to patent AI tech; one study finds filings mentioning "machine learning" grew from 145 in 2010 to 594 in 2016 (Tom Simonite/Wired)
- Sources and leaked docs: Google is planning to launch a censored version of its search engine in China that will blacklist websites and filter search results (Ryan Gallagher/The Intercept)
- Facebook and Instagram add activity dashboards to help people manage their time on social apps (Facebook)
- NYC sues Airbnb to comply with city's subpoena on listings; Airbnb says it didn't comply because NYC's Office of Special Enforcement asked for too much info (Bloomberg)
- Google says it got duck.com after buying video compression startup On2 in 2010; will now redirect domain to a page with links to DuckDuckGo, Wikipedia, and more (Sean Hollister/CNET)
- What should competitive Fortnite look like?
- James Gunn fired from ‘Guardians of the Galaxy 3’ after offensive tweets resurface
- Sources: event-planning company Eventbrite has filed confidentially for an IPO; the company has raised more than $350M and was valued at more than $1B in 2014 (Wall Street Journal)
- Facebook suspends analytics firm Crimson Hexagon over data use concerns
- Comics writer Grant Morrison signs a content deal with Magic Leap
- Facebook plans to launch Athena, likely a constellation of small internet-delivering satellites, starting in 2019, after downgrading a drone project last month (Louise Matsakis/Wired)
- Niantic explains how and why it bans players in Pokémon GO
- Oscar and Lemonade founders will join us at Disrupt SF to strategize about the future of insurance innovation
- Inside state-sponsored trolling efforts that combine virtual hate mobs, surveillance, and misinformation to silence critical voices and spread disinformation (Bloomberg)
- Now this… this is an ultra-wide monitor
- Wilson is like Longreads for podcasts
- YouTube CEO’s latest update details its growth, glosses over content problems