Techmeme
December 27, 2018, 4:50 AM

Top News

Don Reisinger / Fortune:
Amazon announces a record-breaking holiday season with the number of voice-activated shopping orders placed using Alexa tripling YoY  —  Shoppers are increasingly using their voices to buy products online.  —  Amazon on Wednesday said that the number of voice-activated orders placed via …
Washington Post:
Reid Hoffman says he wasn't aware of disinformation campaign in Alabama race, apologizes for funding group linked to it; source says Hoffman invested $750K  —  Internet billionaire Reid Hoffman apologized on Wednesday for funding a group linked to a “highly disturbing” effort …
Wall Street Journal:
Analysis: SEC and state regulators brought 90+ crypto-related cases in the past two years, recovering just ~$36M; cases increased as the market crashed  —  SEC and state regulators have brought more than 90 crypto cases over the past two years, but tracing funds is hard because of the elusive nature of the currency
Aftab Ahmed / Reuters:
India tightens rules for e-commerce firms like Amazon, banning exclusive agreements with sellers and the sale of products from firms the platform has a stake in  —  Aftab Ahmed, Sankalp Phartiyal  —  NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) - India will ban e-commerce companies such as Amazon.com …
Wolfie Zhao / CoinDesk:
Crypto mining startup Bitmain confirms layoffs, which, source says, may affect half of its total head count, with some departments being laid off entirely  —  Months after it filed an application to go public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Beijing-based cryptocurrency mining giant Bitmain …
Max Read / New York Magazine:
The internet now feels increasingly fake as trust declines and users begin to understand how bots fake page views, conversations, and more  —  In late November, the Justice Department unsealed indictments against eight people accused of fleecing advertisers of $36 million …
Taylor Lorenz / The Atlantic:
A look at Speakr, a social media influencer management platform that some influencers say has failed to pay them, with trouble starting in late 2017  —  The agency Speakr set influencers up with brands for lucrative campaigns—and then stiffed them.  —  After rising to MySpace fame in the mid-aughts …
Nellie Bowles / New York Times:
As some prominent creators leave in protest after Patreon bans anti-feminist for hate speech, a look at its approach to policing speech with human moderators  —  Sam Harris, the polemical atheist neuroscientist known for his popular podcast “Waking Up,” was making tens of thousands of dollars …
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
In 2018, smartphone makers, users, and some academics began to appreciate the effects of excessive smartphone use, leading to iOS' Screen Time and other tools  —  But will we actually reclaim our time from smartphones?  —  At the beginning of this year, I was using my iPhone to browse …

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
CIO challenge 6: Can we find an effective solution that also minimizes operational costs?  —  Welcome to the next and final installment of our CIO series!  After what feels like a thousand cups of coffee …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 11/15 - Crypto Ascendant
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:50 AM ET, December 27, 2018.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Megha Rajagopalan / BuzzFeed News:
Mara Hvistendahl / MIT Technology Review:

Earlier Picks

Zachary Fryer-Biggs / Wired:
Raymond Zhong / New York Times: