Altaeros just raised another $7.5 million from SoftBank to bring broadband wireless to rural areas via tethered balloons. “Launched in 2010 at MIT, Altaeros’ team anticipated from the beginning that its aerostats can be used for many commercial applications,” TechCrunch reports, citing a conversation with co-founder Adam Rein. Altaeros previously raised $7 million from SoftBank Group.

Along with a redesign, Xbox Live is adding Spotify to the mix. “Spotify, which has 140 million users, also announced its new Xbox One app on Tuesday, noting that it is available in 34 countries,” GeekWire reports. “You can download the app from the Xbox Store and play while you game; there is a ‘Gaming’ hub with pre-curated gaming playlists.”

Pinterest is expanding its video ad offerings, Adweek reports. “Pinterest started testing Promoted Video last August with brands including General Mills, Kate Spade New York and Universal Pictures,” it writes. “Since then, it has moved to autoplay, a format brought into the mainstream by Facebook, and began placing video ads within search results and feeds.”

Foursquare is switching up its Swarm app to serve as a so-called “lifelog,” The Verge reports. Bigger picture, “With younger smartphone users gravitating toward text, photos, and videos that disappear … Foursquare now wants to create a space where you can plant a virtual flag, to come back to a memory and savor it later on in life.”

Facebook’s immense reach, the lure of ad dollars, and partisan politics are creating opportunities for the unlikeliest of influencers. “As an example, BuzzFeed News’ analysis found that a conservative Facebook page being run by a 20-year-old Macedonian frequently outperforms some of the larger conservative pages operated by Americans,” BuzzFeed reports. Still, at the moment, top liberal partisan Facebook pages are generating more total engagement than their conservative counterparts.

In lieu of texting, “the next billion” Web users are going to communicate mostly via voice and video, The Wall Street Journal suggests. Regarding those billion users, it writes: “They are a swath of the world’s less-educated, online for the first time thanks to low-end smartphones, cheap data plans and intuitive apps that let them navigate despite poor literacy.”

Marking its first acquisition to date, Netflix just bought “comic universe” Millarworld. Regarding founder Mark Millar, Forbes notes: Millar has been one of the most popular creators of superhero comics in the 21st century.” Per the deal, "Netflix and Millar will bring Millarworld’s portfolio of critically and fan-acclaimed character franchises to life through films, series and kids’ shows available exclusively to Netflix members globally.”

After a long testing period, YouTube this week is launching a mobile chat feature that supports text, video, and group conversations. “YouTube first started testing letting groups of users share and talk about videos in May 2016,” Venture Beat notes. “The company then pushed the feature to Canada in January 2017 as a test, since Canadians share more videos online than any other nation.”

Samsung is rolling out a sturdier version of its flagship Galaxy S8 smartphone “The Galaxy S8 Active comes coated in a thicker frame with metal sides and a polycarbonate material on the back,” Business Insider notes. “The makes the phone a bit heftier than the standard Galaxy S8, but Samsung says it allows the device to meet military-grade durability standards.”

LinkedIn is rolling out a new service that matches users with potential mentors. “The service (which started with a small test last month) is free and will be available first to users in San Francisco and Australia,” TechCrunch reports. “Initially, LinkedIn has tapped a hand-selected list of potential mentors, who will come up as a list, Tinder-style, to people who indicate that they are interested in getting some mentoring.”