Karen Hao / MIT Technology Review: As deepfakes make their way into broadcast-quality productions, filmmakers and artists are facing new questions like how to cast the right actors for a deepfake  —  In 2019, two multimedia artists, Francesca Panetta and Halsey Burgund, set about to pursue a provocative idea.

Lee Phillips / Ars Technica: A look at the key characteristics of the Julia programming language, as scientists increasingly adopt the language for tackling large-scale numerical problems  —  Fortran has ruled scientific computing, but Julia emerged for large-scale numerical work.  —  I´ve been running into a lot of happy and excited scientists lately.

FinSMEs: Datavant, which lets healthcare organizations connect their data while protecting patient privacy, raises $40M Series B, bringing its total raised to $83M  —  Datavant, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of solutions for life sciences and healthcare organizations to connect their data …

Damien Wilde / 9to5Google: Samsung launches Access, a new service for US users offering an S20 handset, Microsoft 365, 1TB OneDrive, and more, starting at $37/month  —  Samsung has now officially launched the extra-care Access program in the United States, which gives you added protection and benefits such as a Microsoft 365 subscription.

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Singapore-based Beam, which offers shared electric scooters in Korea, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Taiwan, raises $26M Series A  —  Beam, a Singapore-headquartered micromobility firm that offers shared e-scooters, has raised $26 million in a new financing round as it looks to expand …

Abner Li / 9to5Google: Marketing docs for Pixel 4 and 4 XL confirm 5.7" and 6.3" displays, with 90Hz “Smooth Display”, 12MP and 16MP rear cameras, and Snapdragon 855 with 6GB of RAM  —  Despite the official announcement being on Tuesday, Best Buy in Canada has already listed the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL for pre-order.

Rachel Monroe / The Atlantic: Stories of three fundraising campaigns that illustrate the complexities of the GoFundMe ecosystem, where 50M people have donated $5B+ through 2017  —  in june 2016, Chauncy Black rode the bus from his home in South Memphis to one of the city´s whiter, wealthier neighborhoods.

Peter Blumberg / Bloomberg: Magic Leap sues Chi Xu, a former employee who founded the China-based AR startup Nreal, for alleged IP theft  —  - The startup says the former employee stole its AR secrets  — Alleged technology theft a sore point in U.S.-China relations  —  Magic Leap Inc., a U.S. startup that makes …

MENAbytes: Swvl, a two-year-old Cairo-based startup that makes an app for booking buses, raises $42M, bringing its total raised to ~$80M  —  Share2K  —  2K Shares  —  Cairo-based transportation startup Swvl has raised $42 million in fresh funds (Series B-2), the startup announced in a statement to MENAbytes.

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch: VidMob, which makes video advertising tools, raises $25M Series B led by Austin-based BuildGroup, bringing its total raised to $45M+  —  Video advertising company VidMob is announcing that it has raised $25 million in Series B funding.  —  When I wrote about VidMob´s seed funding back in 2015 …