T-Mobile and Sprint reach a merger agreement, Blue Origin has a successful flight and we look at the legacy of Burning Man creator Larry Harvey. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for April 30, 2018. 1. T-Mobile and Sprint have finally announced a merger agreement This comes after years of back-and-forth about whether or not the two telecom giants will come together. Now they just need government regulators to approve the deal. T-Mobile argues that the merger will allow it to remain competitive with AT&T and Verizon (which owns TechCrunch) as they roll out next generation 5G networks. 2. Blue Origin's New Shepard skims space in successful 8th test launch New Shepard isn't meant to deliver things into orbit, because Blue Origin has a different purpose and technology from the likes of SpaceX. It's focused on giving people a quick, safe lift into space followed by a period of weightlessness and a pleasant descent. 3. Fitbit will use Google Cloud to make its data available to doctors For Fitbit, the deal means moving a step closer toward healthcare legitimacy. 4. Twitter also sold data access to Cambridge Analytica researcher Twitter confirmed this weekend that Aleksandr Kogan's commercial enterprise GSR had purchased one-time API access to a random sample of public tweets from 2014 and 2015. Twitter told Bloomberg that the company did not find any access to private data about people who use Twitter. 5. Burning Man's Larry Harvey passes after opening tech's imagination Even those of us who have never been to Burning Man have to acknowledge the impact that the event has had on our culture, particularly in Silicon Valley. 6. Walmart retreats from its UK Asda business to hone its focus on competing with Amazon UK supermarket chain Sainsbury's has announced a deal with Walmart to buy a majority stake in Asda, Walmart's wholly-owned UK subsidiary. 7. Podcast-a-palooza This week we've got the Equity podcast discussing a strong week for earnings and Original Content offering initial impressions on The Handmaid's Tale season two. |