Snap gets ready to go public, Uber's CEO tells Trump he's out and more in The Daily Crunch for February 3, 2017. And if you're LG, this series of half-measures is not an okay way to fix a fundamental hardware flaw. 1. Snap filed its IPO Snap has filed the documents required for it to go public, which should happen sometime in early March. The filing provided a wellspring of previously private information about the company, including revenue, profitability (it isn't) and tidbits on user growth. There's a lot in the S-1, including some troubling signs for the pace of growth in a key category: Daily Active Users, which is about the only metric advertisers care about for products like Snapchat. But it's well worth diving in if you're considering investing when shares become available, or you're just a curious Snap, Inc. observer. 2. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick quits Trump's business council Uber CEO Travis Kalanick told Donald Trump he would not be joining his economic advisory council after all, following protests, a #DeleteUber social media campaign and even some employee backlash. Kalanick said he called Trump to tell him the news in a message to employees obtained by TechCrunch, and today some are reporting that the White House is not pleased. It was likely a calculated move on Kalanick's part to stem driver and employee upheaval, but it still seems like the best option given that Kalanick was already on the council at this point and couldn't go back in time. 3. Meanwhile Musk is still a member Elon Musk issued a statement last night about Trump's immigration order and the council, which he remains a member of. Musk said he'll be presenting objections to the order at a meeting of the group today. Musk still seems to believe the best way to deal with Trump is by being close to him, but we'll see if that remains his strategy after this meeting. 4. LG confirms 5K display Wi-Fi interference issues LG says its aware of the issues its 5K display for MacBook Pro is having with Wi-Fi interference from being placed close to routers, and now it will be getting rid of it with a change to the design that adds more shielding. There's also a plan to retrofit existing ones with this shielding, but if I were in the market for a 5K display from LG, I'd wait a while to hopefully see existing stock cleared out. 5. PS4 will soon finally be able to use external storage PlayStation 4 is getting an update that will allow it to use external storage USB hard drives as space for games, saves and media, which is a long-overdue feature. It'll also add the less useful but still cool ability to watch 3D Blu-ray videos via PS VR. 6. Snap's acquisition costs revealed One very interesting part of the Snap S-1 was the revelation of prices paid for its various acquisitions. Bitstrips, which powers Bitmoji, was probably one of the better deals in the mix, with an acquisition price of just $64.2 million. 7. Microsoft is moving into downtown Detroit Microsoft has Michigan-based operations in the 'burbs, but it's moving downtown to a large new office that should help it ride the wave of automotive tech renaissance in the city, among other business it conducts from the state. |