Techmeme
January 25, 2019, 6:30 PM

Top News

Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Sources: Zuckerberg plans to add end-to-end encryption to Instagram and Messenger and integrate their messaging infrastructure and WhatsApp's by end of the year  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, plans to integrate the social network's messaging services …
Nathan Halverson / Reveal:
Unsealed documents show Facebook orchestrated a multi-year effort that duped children who played video games into spending their parents' money  —  Facebook orchestrated a multi-year effort that duped children and their parents out of money, in some cases hundreds or even thousands of dollars …
Daisuke Wakabayashi / New York Times:
YouTube says it will no longer suggest videos with “borderline content” or those that “misinform users in a harmful way” even if they don't violate guidelines  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Whether it is a video claiming the earth is flat or the moon landing was faked …
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Google confirms that I/O 2019 will take place from May 7 to May 9 at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View after a developer solves the I/O puzzle  —  If you're a fan of all things Google, you already have a date to mark on your calendar for 2019.  Developer Till Kottmann …
Guilherme Rambo / 9to5Mac:
Apple's first beta of iOS 12.2 for developers includes images of a magazine subscription service, rumored since Apple first bought Texture  —  There have been rumors about an Apple News subscription service since mid-2018, starting with a report by Bloomberg that said Apple was planing …
Science:
Study of registered US voters in 2016: ~6% of all news consumed on Twitter was fake news, 1% of users were exposed to 80% of it and 0.1% shared 80% thereof  —  There was a proliferation of fake news during the 2016 election cycle.  Grinberg et al. analyzed Twitter data by matching Twitter accounts …
Natasha Singer / New York Times:
Amazon's Rekognition mistakes women as men 19% of the time, and darker-skinned women as men 31% of the time, more than similar services from IBM and Microsoft  —  In new tests, Amazon's system had more difficulty identifying the gender of female and darker-skinned faces than similar services from IBM and Microsoft.
Mariella Moon / Engadget:
HMD says it will soon sell its Nokia smartphones through Verizon and Cricket Wireless in US and Rogers in Canada  —  Nokia's parent company, HMD Global, chose to put its US ambitions in the back burner to focus on markets where the brand has been enjoying a resurgence these past few years.
Peter Kafka / Recode:
Sources: BuzzFeed and Group Nine have discussed merger; companies have ties via BuzzFeed's chairman Ken Lerer and his son Ben Lerer, CEO at Group Nine  —  BuzzFeed is cutting costs and getting leaner, but it still wants to get bigger — by exploring a deal with Group Nine.
Tom Krazit / GeekWire:
Microsoft acquires Citus Data, which develops an open-source extension for PostgreSQL that turns it into a distributed database  —  Databases continue to be one of the most competitive areas of cloud computing, and Microsoft strengthened its database story Thursday with the acquisition of Citus Data.
Jessica Guynn / USA Today:
How black women founders, long underestimated and overlooked in tech, are now raising millions in venture capital and forcing Silicon Valley to pay attention  —  SAN FRANCISCO - In the early days of Zume Pizza, visitors to Julia Collins' robotic food prep company in Silicon Valley …
Alexis C. Madrigal / The Atlantic:
How resellers are making money from Amazon returns via liquidation sites, like Liquidity Services, which has 3M+ users and generated $626.4M in sales last year  —  With a couple hundred dollars and a few minutes, you could go to a liquidation website right now and buy a pallet full of stuff that people have returned to Amazon.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
UiPath:
Introducing the UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation  —  UiPath's new platform empowers enterprises to experience the full power of AI to transform industries
Zoho:
Automate recurring activities with Zoho One's RPA addition  —  Robotic Process Automation (RPA) automates manual and routine tasks for businesses by using digital robots that replicate human behaviour.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
Omnibus Week Of 04/28
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Hard Fork:
The Dangers of A.I. Flattery + Kevin Meets the Orb + Group Chat Chat
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
EP 141 Ben Lamm (Founder & CEO, Colossal Biosciences) On The Breakthroughs Making De-Extinction Actually Possible
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Great Chat:
What's the deal with Deel?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Lenny's Podcast:
The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can't stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Josh Kopelman from First Round Capital
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:30 PM ET, January 25, 2019.

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

Aaron Pressman / Fortune:

Earlier Picks

Ryan Whitwam / ExtremeTech:
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Richard Nieva / CNET: