Techmeme
February 20, 2020, 9:30 PM

Top News

Ben Collins / NBC News:
Twitter confirms it is testing bright labels beneath lies and misinfo posted by politicians and public figures, and points-based “community badges” for users  —  A leaked demo features bright red and orange badges for tweets that have been deemed “harmfully misleading.”
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is weighing an option to set third-party browser and email apps as defaults on iPhones and iPads and third-party music services on the HomePod  —  - Company considers letting users change web browser, email app  — Spotify, Pandora may be allowed to stream directly on HomePod
Christopher Dring / GamesIndustry.biz:
Sony and Facebook say they will not attend Game Developers Conference this year due to coronavirus concerns; Facebook to make Oculus announcements online  —  Oculus announcements will now take place online  —  PlayStation and Facebook Gaming/Oculus will not be attending …
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
US links Sandworm hacking group to Russian agency GRU's Main Center for Special Technology, blaming it for cyberattacks that hit neighboring Georgia in October  —  By calling out Russia for digital assaults on its neighboring country, the US hopes to head off similar efforts at home.
Craig Silverman / BuzzFeed News:
Google removed ~600 Android apps, which were installed 4.5B+ times, and banned the developers behind them from Play Store for ad fraud and “disruptive” ads  —  Google has removed close to 600 Android apps and banned their developers from the Play store and its ad networks as part …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft announces Defender ATP for Linux, will offer the antivirus software for Android and iOS later this year as part of its enterprise security platform  —  New Defender mobile apps will be available later this year  —  Microsoft is planning to bring its Defender antivirus software to Android and iOS later this year.
New York Times:
Morgan Stanley says it will buy online discount brokerage E-Trade for about $13B, in the biggest takeover by an American lender since the 2008 financial crisis  —  The $13 billion deal will give a powerful Wall Street firm control of a major presence in the world of online brokerages.
Sam Byford / The Verge:
HTC announces new Cosmos VR headset variants: $899 Elite, lower-end Play, and XR with “high-quality XR passthrough cameras”, giving it AR capabilities  —  One for gamers, one for AR, one for Angry Birds  —  HTC is expanding its range of virtual reality headsets today with multiple new variants of the Vive Cosmos.
Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Sprint and T-Mobile have agreed to amend their merger agreement to give Deutsche Telekom a higher ownership stake in the new combined company  —  - Sprint and T-Mobile have agreed to amend their merger deal agreement to give Deutsche Telekom a higher ownership stake in the new combined company.
Craig Timberg / Washington Post:
Sources detail the rising clout of Joel Kaplan and other conservatives at Facebook during the Trump administration  —  Facebook created “Project P” — for propaganda — in the hectic weeks after the 2016 presidential election and quickly found dozens of pages that had peddled false news reports ahead of Donald Trump's surprise victory.
Vincent Woo / New York Magazine:
Internal documents and interviews with former staff and students detail Lambda coding school's misleading claims about graduate outcomes and curriculum quality  —  If you visit the website of Lambda School, a “boot camp” for people who want to quickly learn how to code …
Shona Ghosh / Business Insider:
Google tells Cloud Vision API customers it will no longer label pictures with “woman” or “man” as a person's gender cannot be inferred by appearance alone  —  - A Google AI tool that can recognize objects in pictures will no longer attach gender labels like “woman” or “man” to images of people.

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