Techmeme
June 19, 2018, 6:35 PM

Top News

Zack Whittaker / ZDNet:
Sen. Wyden, whose probe led Verizon to shun sending location data to aggregators, rebukes AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile for weak stances; all have now pledged to stop  —  The scandal erupted after one company claimed to be able to track any cell phone in the US “within seconds.”
Frank Bajak / Associated Press:
Verizon pledges to stop selling customers' location data to aggregators, like LocationSmart and Zumigo, which it says passed along the info to ~75 other firms  —  Verizon is pledging to stop sales through intermediaries of data that pinpoints the location of mobile phones to outside companies, the Associated Press has learned.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook debuts game show platform that lets creators add quizzes, polls, and more to live and on-demand video; Facebook tests ability to award prize money  —  Rather than build its own HQ trivia competitor, Facebook is launching a gameshow platform.  Today the company announced a new set …
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Google Podcasts launches for Android with personalized recs and listening progress auto-sync; closed captions and language translation features are planned  —  Finally taking podcasts seriously  —  Google today is introducing its first standalone podcast app for Android.
Kurt Wagner / Recode:
Facebook is testing autoplay video ads inside Messenger, after it started selling static ads in the service 18 months ago  —  The big question: Do users want to see video ads next to their private messages?  —  Facebook found a new place to sell video ads: Inside Messenger …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Amazon is rolling out Alexa for Hospitality, a version of Alexa for hotels that can help order room service, request housekeeping, and more, by invite  —  Order room service, request housekeeping, or play some tunes  —  Amazon is today introducing Alexa for Hospitality …
Ben Fox Rubin / CNET:
Amazon officially announces Hub, its package delivery lockers, and says over 500,000 have access to them as more roll out across US  —  Amazon on Tuesday talked up some of the early successes of its new delivery lockers for apartments, called Hub.  —  The e-commerce giant last July launched the program …
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Oppo announces Find X with 6.4-inch display and front and rear cameras housed in slide-up section above the display to avoid a notch; price and release TBD  —  The latest volley in the war against notches is a motorized camera  —  Photography by Amelia Holowaty Krales; video by Phil Esposito, Alix Diaconis
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Anchor brings its free suite of mobile podcasting tools to the iPad, following its relaunch earlier this year as a podcast creation platform  —  Following its relaunch earlier this year as a podcast creation platform, Anchor today is bringing its suite of mobile podcasting tools to the iPad.
Gideon Lewis-Kraus / Wired:
Inside the crypto world's biggest scandal: how the Tezos story unfolded into a fiasco after raising $232M in what was the largest ICO at the time  —  Arthur and Kathleen Breitman thought they held the secret to building a new decentralized utopia.  On the way, they plunged into a new kind of hell.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Yahoo updates Yahoo Mail for mobile web and releases an app for Android Go, as it seeks new users on lower-end devices  —  The days for Yahoo Messenger are now numbered, but Yahoo and its parent Oath (which also owns TC) are still counting on growth for other communications services, specifically Yahoo Mail.
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
San Francisco-based Peek raises $23M Series B and inks partnership with Google in push to digitize travel activities  —  Peek, a U.S. startup aiming to digitize the travel activities industry, has pulled a $23 million Series B round of financing and uncorked a partnership with Google that will help increase its visibility.
More: PYMNTS.com and tnooz
K.G Orphanides / WIRED UK:
An overview of the EU's proposed new copyright law that will require internet platforms to automatically filter uploaded content, ahead of Wednesday's vote  —  A proposed new European copyright law could make memes illegal and threaten the future of the internet as we know it.  Time to panic?
Jennifer Bisset / CNET:
Apple ordered to pay AU$9M fine by Australian court for telling customers they weren't entitled to a refund after the Error 53 bug that bricked some iOS devices  —  The time has come for Apple to pay for the infamous Error 53 that bricked iPhones and iPads taken to a third party for repairs.
Stephanie Condon / ZDNet:
HPE announces ARM-based supercomputer for US government, with 5,184 28-core processors, as it seeks to compete with x86-based machines  —  Astra will deliver over 2.3 peak petaflops of performance, which should put it well within the top 100 supercomputers ever built.
Peter Rudegeair / Wall Street Journal:
PayPal to buy Hyperwallet, which helps individuals and small firms receive payments for goods and services they sell on online marketplaces, for about $400M  —  Hyperwallet helps individuals and small firms receive payments for goods and services that they sell on online marketplaces

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