Peloton
Peloton is charging forward with its initial public offering.
Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Thursday.
- Amazon unveiled a vast array of new gadgets on Wednesday including the $130 'Echo Buds' that come with Bose noise-canceling technology and a high-end Echo smart speaker to take on Apple's HomePod and the Google Home Max. The big focus for Amazon's product blitz was Alexa-powered electronics, as Amazon moves from smart speakers to smart home.
- Peloton priced its IPO at the top of its range, raking in $1.2 billion and giving it a valuation of more than $8 billion. The company expects its shares to begin trading on the Nasdaq on Thursday.
- Facebook has been hit with a new investigation by the US government, this time from the justice department. It will mark the fourth recent investigation of the social media company.
- WeWork is reportedly unlikely to go public this year - and thousands of layoffs could be coming. According to a Wall Street Journal reported, WeWork's new co-CEOs, Artie Minson and Sebastian Gunningham, are considering "a few thousand" layoffs in the coming months to cut costs at the company.
- YouTube said it won't ban politicians from using its platform even if content violates the company's guidelines. Facebook's Nick Clegg made a similar commitment earlier in the week saying: "It is not our role to intervene when politicians speak."
- Five years after buying Oculus for $2B, Facebook says that VR is ready to take off. The social media giant unveiled its plans for VR and its annual developer's conference on Wednesday.
- Internal documents showed TikTok censoring topics that would anger China. Internal documents reviewed by The Guardian showed that the short-form video app was instructing moderators to censor political content that was likely to anger the Chinese government.
- The CEO of eBay abruptly stepped down from the company on Wednesday. eBay also said that it was continuing a strategic review of its assets, including the ticket-sales website StubHub and the Classifieds Group.
- Tinder's parent company Match Group saw shares tumble after the Federal Trade Commission announced a lawsuit alleging the company used fake love-interest ads to lure consumers into buying subscriptions. The agency accused Match Group of unfairly exposing customers to risk of fraud, and issuing "false promises of 'guarantees'" for subscribers.
- Samsung is positioning the revamped Galaxy Fold as a luxury device where users get their own customer support concierge who will come to you wherever you are. The $2,000 Galaxy Fold comes included with Samsung's "Galaxy Fold Premier Service" concierge support for the lifetime of the device.
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