California passes a big privacy bill. It's The Daily Crunch.

THE DAILY CRUNCH FRIDAY, JUNE 29 2018 By Anthony Ha Silicon Valley's home state gives the nod to a major online privacy bill, Apple is rebuilding Maps and a new acquisition could deepen Pokémon GO's connection to the real world. Here's your Daily Crunch for June 29, 2018. 1. California passes landmark data privacy bill According to the law, consumers can opt out of allowing their data to be sold, and businesses are not allowed to respond by changing the price or level of service. Companies can, however, offer "financial incentives" for data collection. This is only a state law, but California is a big and populous state, and it's home to many of the Internet giants that have leveraged user data to build their businesses. 2. Apple is rebuilding Maps from the ground up Maps needs fixing. Apple, it turns out, is aware of this. Sponsored By: Disrupt SF 2018 Get Your Startup In Front Of 10,000 People Book your Startup Alley package at Disrupt SF and get 3 passes to the conference (that's 1 extra than normal!). Disrupt SF will bring together 10,000 innovators from around the world for 3 full days of startups and tech news. Book your package today and get your startup noticed by today's leading investors. Learn More… 3. Bird has officially raised a whopping $300M as the scooter wars heat up This is the second round of funding that Bird has raised over the span of a few months, sending it from a reported $1 billion valuation in May to a $2 billion valuation by the end of June. 4. Niantic's latest acquisition lets AR Pokémon hide behind the real world Niantic, the company behind Pokémon GO, has just acquired Matrix Mill, which has been working on a product it calls "Monodepth" — a tool that takes data from a single RGB camera, passes it through a neural network and spits out depth data fast enough to be integrated into a real-time game. 5. Twitter gets a re-org and new product head The changes will see Twitter dividing its business into groups including engineering, product, revenue product, design and research, while also bringing on Kayvon Beykpour, the GM of video and former Periscope CEO, as product head. 6. Instagram Stories now lets its 400M users add soundtracks Thanks to Facebook's recent deals with record labels, users will be able to choose from thousands of songs from artists including Bruno Mars, Dua Lipa, Calvin Harris and Guns N' Roses. 7. Science fiction writer Harlan Ellison is dead He was one of my childhood heroes. Get more stories at techcrunch.com  Newest Jobs From CrunchBoard: Entrepreneurial + Technical Product Manager For Automotive Web Startup at VinAudit.com, Inc. (Kirkland, WA, USA) Netsuite Software Developer at Design Within Reach Inc. (Stamford, CT, USA) Director of Product at Better (New York, NY, USA) Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at WP Media (Anywhere) SQL DEVELOPER at Earthjustice (San Francisco, CA or Nationwide) SEE MORE JOBS ON CRUNCHBOARD Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month View this email online in your browser If you do not want to receive this email or you would like to update your preferences click here. 410 Townsend Street, San Francisco, CA 94107 © 2018 Oath Tech Network. All rights reserved.   TechCrunch is now a part of Oath and a part of Verizon. On May 25th 2018 we will be introducing a new unified Oath Terms of Service and Privacy Policy which will explain how your data is used and shared. Learn More.

                                                           

Amazon buys an online pharmacy. It's The Daily Crunch.

THE DAILY CRUNCH THURSDAY, JUNE 28 2018 By Anthony Ha Amazon acquires PillPack, Apple might bring all its media under one subscription and Google invests in a feature phone operating system. Here's your Daily Crunch for June 28, 2018. 1. Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B PillPack is an online pharmacy that lets users buy medication in pre-made doses. Its acquisition comes a week after Amazon announced a CEO for its as-yet-unnamed healthcare joint venture with JP Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway. While the terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, sources say the price was just under $1 billion. 2. Apple could bundle TV, music and news in a single subscription While Apple's main media subscription product is currently Apple Music, it's no secret that the company is investing in other areas, particularly TV. But Apple hasn't said anything publicly about how it plans to sell those TV shows. Sponsored By: StackSocial Here's how you can master Adobe's Creative Cloud for just $29 The Complete Adobe CC Training Bundle offers 65+ hours of in-depth training in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, Premiere Pro, and more. Normally over $650, TechCrunch subscribers can pick it up for just $29 today. Learn More… 3. Study calls out 'dark patterns' in Facebook and Google that push users toward less privacy This study from a Norway watchdog group painstakingly describes the ways that companies like Facebook and Google push their users toward making choices that negatively affect their own privacy. For instance, in Facebook and Google's privacy settings process, the more private options are simply disabled by default. 4. Google invests $22M in feature phone operating system KaiOS The company has built an eponymous operating system for feature phones that packs a range of native apps and other smartphone-like services. In India, these phones have overtaken iOS to become the second-most popular devices after Android handsets. 5. Instagram Lite quietly launches to find a billion more users abroad Instagram Lite for Android appeared today in the Google Play App Store without any announcement from the company. "The Instagram Lite app is small, allowing you to save space on your phone and download it quickly" the description reads. 6. Self-driving car startup Nuro teams up with Kroger for same-day grocery delivery Nuro's intent is to use its self-driving technology in the last mile for the delivery of local goods and services. That could be things like groceries, dry cleaning, an item you left at a friend's house or really anything within city limits that can fit inside one of Nuro's vehicles — which have two compartments that can fit up to six grocery bags each. 7. DC Entertainment opens sign ups for its streaming and digital comics service I'm not proud of this, but yes, I will probably sign up. Get more stories at techcrunch.com  Newest Jobs From CrunchBoard: Netsuite Software Developer at Design Within Reach Inc. (Stamford, CT, USA) Director of Product at Better (New York, NY, USA) Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at WP Media (Anywhere) SQL DEVELOPER at Earthjustice (San Francisco, CA or Nationwide) Senior Data Engineer at Cox Automotive (Atlanta) SEE MORE JOBS ON CRUNCHBOARD Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month View this email online in your browser If you do not want to receive this email or you would like to update your preferences click here. 410 Townsend Street, San Francisco, CA 94107 © 2018 Oath Tech Network. All rights reserved.   TechCrunch is now a part of Oath and a part of Verizon. On May 25th 2018 we will be introducing a new unified Oath Terms of Service and Privacy Policy which will explain how your data is used and shared. Learn More.