Your Weekend Tech Digest: Google offered to buy Snapchat for $30B, Amazon to lease new Seattle office tower

By Tian DuBelko

We round up the trending stories every week so you can catch up on the top tech news. This week, Google reportedly offered to buy Snapchat for $30 billion, Amazon inched closer to finalizing its new Seattle office tower, GrubHub acquired food delivery service from Yelp for $287.5 million, and Facebook doubled down on using machine learning to fight fake news. Get your weekly recap here, then head over to our blog for more stories.

Google offered $30 billion to buy Snapchat

In an attempt to leave its imprint in the social media space, Google reportedly offered Snapchat $30 billion to acquire it. Snap, which IPO’d in May and saw its market cap hit peaks of $30 billion before tumbling to about $15 billion. Despite this downturn. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel has shown no interest in selling out to anyone, Google included. A partnership between these two companies appears beneficial, given Google’s desire for a top social property and Snap’s desire to push into augmented reality technology, a project that Google’s deep pockets can help fund.

Amazon to expand its Seattle presence with new office tower

Tech giant Amazon is looking to further increase its foothold in Seattle with its newest pending lease. The Rainier Square project, which shares a block with Rainier Tower, included a 58-story office along with residential buildings and a hotel. The exact leasing details are unknown, but Amazon’s new office tower will add to the 40,000 some Amazon employees already in its home state of Washington.

Grubhub acquires food ordering service for $287.5 million from Yelp

Yelp, the company that shows up on Google for a restaurant search, sold Eat24 to GrubHub in a partnership deal. The deal allows GrubHub users to order through Yelp, and vice versa. Yelp looks like it’s getting out of the operational end of food delivery, and letting GrubHub handle that market instead. GrubHub, which already owns some of the most used food ordering services, now even has a greater hand in the food ordering market.

Facebook to combat fake news with machine learning

Facebook said in a recent blog post that it would use “updated machine learning” to fact check trending articles and detect potential fake stories. This move is an extension of a program started in April to add greater context to stories trending on users’ front page. Facebook has taken flak in the past for influencing the presidential election through perpetuating false stories, and time will tell how effective these new measures are in fighting fake news.

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