10 things in tech you need to know today

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Gareth Skyscanner

Skyscanner

Skyscanner CEO Gareth Williams.

Good morning! Here's the technology news you need to know this Tuesday.

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1. Edinburgh-based online travel site Skyscanner has received £128 million from new investors. Skyscanner will use the money to finance acquisitions, expand globally and fend off takeover offers from bigger companies.

2. Chinese firm Beijing Kunlun Tech has bought a controlling stake in Grindr, the world's largest gay dating app, for $93 million (£64 million). The games developer made the announcement of the deal to buy a 60% stake in the US-based app in a filing to the Shenzhen stock exchange.

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3. Yahoo insiders are so frustrated with Marissa Mayer that they've apparently come up with a snarky nickname for her. Employee morale is so low that some people are now calling Mayer "Evita," in reference to Eva Peron, the former wife of Argentinian dictator Juan Peron, known for her rise to power and desire for fame.

4. You have a secret Tinder rating - but only the company can see what it is. In an interview with Fast Company, Tinder CEO Sean Rad revealed the dating app's hidden ranking system, which is used to generate better matches.

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5. Analysts are at war over how much investment money UK tech companies are raising. CB Insights claims there was an increase of over 70% in the amount of money invested into UK tech companies between 2014 and 2015 but venture capital analysts at Dealroom said this is "hard to believe."

6. Uber delivered a billion rides after 5 years but its biggest rival in China did it in just one year. Didi Kuaidi announced Monday that the company gave 200 million rides in December 2015 alone - and 1.43 billion rides in 2015 altogether.

7. Chris Hughes, the Facebook cofounder who bought a majority stake in political mag The New Republic in 2012 at the age of 28, is putting the magazine back up for sale. Hughes, who helped cofound Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg, told the magazine's staff on Monday that he would be seeking to find a new owner for the publication.

8. Apple says that it accidentally provided publishers with inaccurate data about traffic from its Apple News app. Apple released its News app last year as part of its iOS 9 software update. The app brings together news and content from lots of publications that choose to be listed on the platform.

9. Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk thinks it's pretty obvious that Apple is working on its own electric car, and that Apple would be a really good auto manufacturer. Last week, Apple was found to have bought a bunch of web addresses related to cars, including apple.car and apple.auto.

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10. Amazon will soon release a portable version of Echo, its Wi-Fi speaker that responds to voice commands. The new Echo will be smaller than the current version, and will not have to be plugged in to accept voice commands - though you will have to push a button.

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