Techmeme
August 14, 2019, 8:20 AM

Top News

Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
Sources: Facebook paid hundreds of contractors to transcribe user audio; FB says it's stopped the work, which affected users who wanted voice chats transcribed  —  - Social network says it paused human review of conversations  — Apple, Amazon, Google have been scrutinized for similar work
Josh Taylor / The Guardian:
Fingerprints of 1M+ people and biometric info from a system used by banks, London police, and defense contractors, discovered on a publicly accessible database  —  Fingerprints, facial recognition and other personal information from Biostar 2 discovered on publicly accessible database
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Twitter to soon let users follow interests, starting with sports, and create separate timelines for different topics; topics will be curated by Twitter using AI  —  A new way to explore interests on Twitter  —  Twitter will begin letting users follow interests, the company said today …
Bloomberg:
FAA sent airlines a reminder to follow 2016 safety instructions that ban goods with recalled batteries, like recently recalled MacBook Pros, from the planes  —  - FAA says some MacBook Pros shouldn't be taken on airplanes  — Apple recently recalled select laptops over battery fire risk
Dan Primack / Axios:
WeWork files to raise $1B in an IPO, reports a $904M net loss on around $1.5B in revenue for first half of 2019  —  WeWork on Wednesday filed to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering, although the ultimate offering amount is expected to be at least three times larger.
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Microsoft patches four wormable BlueKeep-like bugs in Remote Desktop Service, two of which can be exploited remotely without authentication or user interaction  —  Most Microsoft Windows (ab)users probably welcome the monthly ritual of applying security updates about as much as they look forward …
Ed Targett / Computer Business Review:
Amazon says it has added “fear” to the range of emotions that its Rekognition facial recognition software can now detect  —  Release follows amid immigration protests  —  AWS has added “fear” to the range of emotions identified by its Amazon Rekognition facial analysis service …
Ian Allison / CoinDesk:
Sources: Coinbase and Barclays end UK partnership, started in early 2018; Coinbase partners with ClearBank, which may have asked the exchange to drop Zcash  —  The most prestigious banking relationship in crypto has ended.  —  Barclays, the London-based global bank, is no longer working …
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Nvidia says it has broken records for real-time conversational AI, training the industry-standard BERT model in 53 minutes and then inferring responses in ~2ms  —  Nvidia's GPU-powered platform for developing and running conversational AI that understands and responds to natural language requests …
Kaya Yurieff / CNN:
A look at Snapchat's community of about 100 official lens creators, who make custom AR lenses for people and brands, with Snap helping connect them to buyers  —  New York (CNN Business)Eighteen-year-old Ana Casciello couldn't find a filter she wanted for her Snapchat photo that matched her personal style.
Ana Wolsztajn / Tech.eu:
Berlin-based PaulCamper, a sharing platform for renting and lending RVs, raises €7M Series A led by Adevinta  —  PaulCamper, a sharing platform for renting and lending RVs, has closed a Series A financing round of €7 million.  The round was led by Adevinta with participation …
More: FinSMEs and EU-Startups
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Verizon sues Rochester, NY to avoid paying fees the city levied over its 5G deployments, uses the FCC's controversial order limiting such fees to argue its case  —  Verizon lawsuit against Rochester relies on FCC vote to cap city-imposed fees.  —  Verizon has sued the City of Rochester …
The Information:
Sources: Spotify is discussing a plan with Apple to let iPhone users tell Siri to play songs, playlists, albums with voice commands, as anti-trust battle looms  —  An issue that has long vexed many iPhone users—the inability to play music from Spotify using Siri, Apple's voice assistant—may soon be a thing of the past.
Jake Bright / TechCrunch:
Kobo360, a Nigerian freight logistics startup, raises $20M Series A led by Goldman Sachs and $10M in working capital financing from Nigerian commercial banks  —  Nigerian freight logistics startup Kobo360 has raised a $20 million Series A round led by Goldman Sachs and $10 million …
Dara Kerr / CNET:
Property owners and hosts, including eight people who dealt with bedbugs in their rentals, say Airbnb doesn't have a systematic procedure to handle outbreaks  —  Waking up with bedbug bites can be a nightmare.  It's also a costly and traumatic problem for Airbnb guests and hosts.

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More News

Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Ursula Perano / Axios: