אסף מגידש - בשורה אחת

To aid discovery of Alexa skills, Amazon says it's testing an interface that lets developers say what kind of questions their skill can answer (Khari Johnson/VentureBeat) אסף מגידש

Q&A with Melinda Gates, who is investing in women-led and minority-focused venture firms through her investment and incubation company Pivotal Ventures (Polina Marinova/Fortune) אסף מגידש

Trilogy Education, which wants to build a bootcamp program for universities focused on teaching tech-related skills, raises $50M series B (Matthew Lynley/TechCrunch) אסף מגידש

French startup Klaxoon, which builds SaaS tools to aid office efficiency and says it has 1M MAUs, raises $50M Series B led by Idinvest Partners (Chris O'Brien/VentureBeat) אסף מגידש

App Annie data on iOS App Store shows over 10K apps have individually generated over $1M since 2010, with 2,293 making $1M-$10M and 564 making $10M+ in 2017 (Jeremy Horwitz/VentureBeat) אסף מגידש

Researcher discovers bug in Valve's platform, present for 10 years, that exposed all 125M users to exploitation until Valve fixed it in March 2018 (Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai/Motherboard) אסף מגידש

Waymo announces deal with Fiat Chrysler to add 62K minivans to its upcoming robotaxi service and begins discussions on selling self-driving cars to people (Andrew J. Hawkins/The Verge) אסף מגידש

What to expect at Apple's WWDC next week: focus on digital health, ARKit 2.0, small changes to iOS, deeper Mac-iOS integration, and no Mac or iPad hardware (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg) אסף מגידש

China-based imToken, which claims it's the world's largest Ethereum wallet, raises $10M Series A from IDG Capital to expand in Asia and the US (Catherine Shu/TechCrunch) אסף מגידש

Toronto-based smart thermostat maker Ecobee adds additional $36M to its Series C round, bringing total funding for the round to $98M (Matt Weinberger/Business Insider) אסף מגידש

Pinterest says it will make it possible for advertisers to show promoted videos that take up the width of the screen (Matthew Lynley/TechCrunch) אסף מגידש

Non-profit USB Implementers Forum announces a new standard for braille displays developed in cooperation with Microsoft, Apple, and others (Swapna Krishna/Engadget) אסף מגידש

Pew Research study of US teen internet usage finds 85% say they use YouTube, 72% use Instagram, 69% use Snapchat, while only 51% say they use Facebook (Megan Farokhmanesh/The Verge) אסף מגידש

Indian payments startup Pine Labs, which offers point-of-sale devices, raises $125M from PayPal and Singapore's Temasek, bringing total funding to $208M (Jon Russell/TechCrunch) אסף מגידש

Despite hype, there are some signs that interest around deep learning research has slowed inside big corporations, especially in the autonomous driving space (Filip Piekniewski/Piekniewski's blog) אסף מגידש

Cryptocurrency startup Paxos, formerly bitcoin exchange itBit, raises $65M Series B to expand blockchain-based services and operate the exchange (Anna Irrera/Reuters) אסף מגידש

Early data after GDPR shows Google and Facebook are drawing ad money by gathering users' consent for targeted ads at far higher rates than competing services (Wall Street Journal) אסף מגידש

Data encryption startup Virtru raises $37M Series B led by Iconiq Capital (Ron Miller/TechCrunch) אסף מגידש

SoftBank Vision Fund will invest $2.25B into GM's Cruise self-driving program, with plans to commercialize such vehicles next year (Dan Primack/Axios) אסף מגידש

Google launches Neighbourly, a Q&A app for sharing local community knowledge in India, available as a beta in Mumbai (Jon Russell/TechCrunch) אסף מגידש

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov says Apple has been rejecting its app updates globally since Russia banned Telegram in April (Bradley Chambers/9to5Mac) אסף מגידש

Profile of NewsDigest, a popular news app in Japan, which employs no journalists and uses AI and social media monitoring to generate stories and spot fake news (Shoko Oda/Bloomberg) אסף מגידש

Xiaomi announces 6.21-inch Mi 8 Explorer Edition flagship with Snapdragon 845, 6GB RAM, 3D face scanner, transparent back, and dual-frequency GPS for ~$420 (Richard Lai/Engadget) אסף מגידש

Advertisers use smartphone location info to send personal injury lawyer ads during and after ER visits, target Planned Parenthood visitors with pro-life ads (Bobby Allyn/NPR) אסף מגידש

GPU database developer SQream raises $26.4M Series B led by Alibaba Group, bringing total funding to ~$40M, as it deepens its focus on China (Catherine Shu/TechCrunch) אסף מגידש

Mary Meeker's annual internet trends report: smartphone shipments stagnate as average selling price drops, e-commerce sales growth and time online rise, more (Rani Molla/Recode) אסף מגידש

Mapping and location platform Mapbox adds AR navigation through its Vision SDK and partners with Mobileye to manage self-driving car data (Kyle Wiggers/VentureBeat) אסף מגידש

Google makes its AR Expeditions available on iOS and Android, with 800 VR and 100 AR experiences (Scott Stein/CNET) אסף מגידש

Oculus rolls out Oculus Venues, its platform for watching live sporting events, concerts, and other media in VR (Lucas Matney/TechCrunch) אסף מגידש

Google's Project Fi adds support for three new handsets: LG G7 ThinQ, the newly announced LG V35 ThinQ, and Moto G6 (Ashley Carman/The Verge) אסף מגידש

AdDuplex report: Windows 10 April 2018 Update is installed on ~50% of Windows 10 PCs worldwide, significantly faster adoption than previous Windows 10 updates (Paul Thurrott/Thurrott.com) אסף מגידש

Amazon's Whole Foods expands 10% discount on some items for Prime members to 12 additional states including Colorado, Arkansas, Texas, and Northern California (Taylor Soper/GeekWire) אסף מגידש

Madrid-based OnTruck, which develops a platform to match supply and demand in the road freight industry, raises €25M Series B led by Cathay Innovation (Steve O'Hear/TechCrunch) אסף מגידש

Facebook begins rolling out polls for Messenger Stories, in a similar style to polls on Instagram Stories (Rob LeFebvre/Engadget) אסף מגידש

James Murdoch says ~50% of Hulu's 20M subscribers opt for the $11.99/month ad-free plan, instead of the $7.99/month plan with commercials (Edmund Lee/Recode) אסף מגידש

Pleo, European startup that uses smart payment cards and mobile app to help employees track company related expenses, raises $16M Series A led by Kinnevik (Amelia Heathman/London Evening Standard) אסף מגידש

Plex redesigns iOS and Android apps, adds new personalization features and support for podcasts (Thomas Ricker/The Verge) אסף מגידש

Ava raises $30M Series B for its fertility-tracking bracelet (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch) אסף מגידש

Inside the debate at Google about the company's cooperation with the military on AI, after contract for Defense Department's project Maven became public (New York Times) אסף מגידש

Tradeshift, a Danish startup that builds private marketplaces for businesses and facilitates supply chain payments, raises $250M Series E at $1.1B valuation (Finextra Research) אסף מגידש

As governments increasingly take an interest in data sovereignty, cloud providers like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft will benefit in the long term (Danny Crichton/TechCrunch) אסף מגידש

Facebook will give researchers encrypted laptops to access Facebook's data and publish findings without pre-approval, in push to prevent abuse during elections (Robbie Gonzalez/Wired) אסף מגידש

Microsoft surpassed Alphabet's market value for the first time in three years by about $10B on Tuesday (Katie Canales/Business Insider) אסף מגידש

HP Omen 15 laptop updated for better gaming with Nvidia Max-Q GPU and reduced screen bezel, to be released July 29 with prices starting at $979 (Valentina Palladino/Ars Technica) אסף מגידש

Huawei MateBook X Pro review: bright display with small bezels, great keyboard and trackpad, powerful, but it has a terrible webcam and average battery life (Dan Seifert/The Verge) אסף מגידש

Russia asks Apple to remove Telegram from App Store and block Telegram notifications, giving one month for a response, following its initial request on April 17 (Rafia Shaikh/Wccftech) אסף מגידש

Alibaba leads a $1.38B investment in Chinese delivery service ZTO Express for 10% stake, helping boost Alibaba's ability to ship items globally (Lulu Yilun Chen/Bloomberg) אסף מגידש

Block.one, a Cayman Islands-based startup hoping to build a mainstream blockchain platform, is on track to raise $4B+ through a yearlong sale of digital tokens (Paul Vigna/Wall Street Journal) אסף מגידש

Sources: Facebook plans to roll out WhatsApp payment services in India as early as next week, despite only three of four launch partners being ready (Bloomberg) אסף מגידש

Russian search giant Yandex announces Prime-like service Yandex.Plus, a ~$160 smart speaker, and a new skills platform for its Alice assistant (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch) אסף מגידש