Techmeme
December 20, 2018, 8:35 PM

Top News

Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Apple says it will stop selling iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 in its 15 retail stores across Germany after Qualcomm was granted an injunction by a Munich court  —  - Last week, a Chinese court ordered an injunction against Apple over an alleged patent violation filed by chipmaker Qualcomm.
CNBC:
DOJ charges two alleged members of China's state sponsored hacking unit APT10 with stealing data from at least 45 US tech companies and government agencies  —  - They are accused of stealing information from at least 45 U.S. tech companies and government agencies.
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
Slack is deactivating accounts it says are linked to Iran to comply with US sanctions without warning the users  —  ‘They are either incompetent at OFAC interpretation or racist’  —  This morning, many Slack users with ties to Iran discovered their accounts had been abruptly deactivated.
Arno Schuetze / Reuters:
Amazon gives a German Alexa user, who requested his personal data under GDPR, access to 1,700 audio files of another user; Amazon says it was due to human error  —  FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A user of Amazon's (AMZN.O) Alexa voice assistant in Germany got access to more than a thousand recordings …
BBC:
UK's Gatwick airport was shut down on Wednesday and Thursday after drones were seen flying over the runway; about 760 flights were due to fly on Thursday  —  Tens of thousands of passengers have been disrupted by drones flying over one of the UK's busiest airports.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple says AI chief John Giannandrea, who joined from Google in April, has been promoted to its executive team as SVP of Machine Learning and AI Strategy  —  Apple today announced John Giannandrea, who handles machine learning and AI for the company, has been promoted to the Apple's executive team …
Dara Kerr / CNET:
Uber says it will bring its self-driving cars back on the road on Thursday in Pittsburgh, nine months after a fatal crash  —  Uber took its self-driving cars off the road last March, after a fatal accident, the first known pedestrian death caused by a vehicle in full autonomous mode.
Reuters:
Twitter closes down 11%+ after investor group Citron Research calls it “the Harvey Weinstein of Social Media” following Amnesty International report  —  - Shares of social media company Twitter down 11.3 percent at $29.22; set for its biggest one-day percent fall in nearly five months
More: Bloomberg
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Zynga says it will buy 80% of Helsinki-based Small Giant Games for $560M in a deal expected to close Jan. 1 and will buy remaining 20% over the next three years  —  Zynga has agreed to acquire the Helsinki-based mobile game maker Small Giant Games, the creator of the hit title Empires & Puzzles.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Amazon says it is rolling out an Alexa integration with Wolfram Alpha to users in US  —  Alexa's getting a bit smarter, courtesy of Wolfram Alpha.  Amazon today announced that its cross-platform assistant will integrate with Wolfram Research's computational knowledge engine to answer math- and science-related questions.
More: Wired and TechCrunch
Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed News:
Report: some apps using Facebook's SDK, like Grindr and Bible+, send user info to Facebook, including location, where users click, and how long the app is used  —  Facebook provided developers with tools to build Facebook-compatible apps like Tinder, Grindr and Pregnancy+.
Ime Archibong / Facebook:

Sponsor Posts

TELUS Digital:
See how your customer experience priorities compare  —  TELUS Digital surveyed leaders about the tech they're investing in, the KPIs they're tracking and their plans for outsourcing.  Get the results.  No form fill required!
Intel:
Intel Delivers powerful CPUs for AI and Networking  —  With the onset of AI, businesses demand powerful and efficient CPUs.  Explore new Intel Xeon 6 processors, for the broadest set of workloads with leadership performance and lower TCO.
Zoho:
The rise of AI in recruitment  —  Note: This is a guest post by our integration partner Ringover.AI has already begun transforming recruitment, but in the coming years, it will reach new heights.
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

Lenny's Podcast:
Become a better communicator: Specific frameworks to improve your clarity, influence, and impact | Wes Kao (coach, entrepreneur, advisor)
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.
Techmeme Ride Home:
(BNS) The Legality Of The AI Stuff
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:
Tech Stock Shock + Solving the Mystery of OpenAI's "Blip" + Tinder's Flirt-Off
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.
BG2 Pod:
Liberation Day, Tariffs, US v China Open Source, OpenAI Fundraise, $CRWV, TikTok
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
What AI anime memes tell us about the future of art and humanity
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Great Chat:
Battle of the startup cities
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:35 PM ET, December 20, 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

BuzzFeed News:

Earlier Picks

Ian Hamilton / UploadVR:
Washington Post: