|
February 8, 2019, 3:40 AM
|
Mediagazer
memeorandum
WeSmirchTop News
| Jeff Bezos: |
Jeff Bezos publishes letters from AMI that he says show threats to publish his nude photos unless he stops probing AMI's earlier reporting and motivations — Something unusual happened to me yesterday. Actually, for me it wasn't just unusual—it was a first. I was made an offer I couldn't refuse.
More:
New York Times, The Verge, GeekWire, SiliconANGLE, Business Insider, CNET, Bloomberg, USA Today, The Guardian, The Atlantic, Gizmodo, Firstpost, The Seattle Times, Ars Technica, The Register, Vox, Android Central, and Fossbytes
Facebook: Bill Ritter. Tweets: @jeffbezos, @ryanhuber, @nickwingfield, @hypatiadotca, @matt_levine, @yashar, @devinwenig, @ronanfarrow, @yashar, @pkafka, @yishan, @rmac18, @donnarapado, @lexnfx, @michaeldweiss, @alexstamos, @caseynewton, @davepell, @alexia, @jenniferjjacobs, @nichcarlson, @bradheath, @rachelwalexande, @ksadjadpour, @alexeheath, @karaswisher, @robertmaguire_, @yashar, @emathieustar, @caseynewton, @sarahkendzior, @drbluman, @anildash, @benjaminwittes, @panzer, @pierre, @brandyljensen, @kathrynw5, @caseynewton, @hels, @nycsouthpaw, @nycsouthpaw, @bradheath, @sriramk, @dangillmor, @waltshaub, @therickwilson, @mrbromwich, @alexrkonrad, @nycjim, @tomgara, and @bradheath
| Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: |
Google warns about two iOS zero-day vulnerabilities that hackers have been actively exploiting; the vulnerabilities have been fixed in iOS 12.1.4 update — iOS users are advised to update to iOS 12.1.4; release which also fixes infamous FaceTime bug. — A Google top security engineer …
More:
Apple Support, Forbes, The Hacker News, Pocketnow, iPhone Hacks, Digital Trends, The Register, and 9to5Mac
Tweets: @iblametom, @stroughtonsmith, and @edbott
| Zac Hall / 9to5Mac: |
Apple releases iOS 12.1.4 with a fix for the Group FaceTime bug, says a security audit of FaceTime revealed a bug in Live Photos on FaceTime, which it has fixed — Apple has turned its Group FaceTime feature back on following the release of iOS 12.1.4 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
More:
The Verge, TechCrunch, BuzzFeed News, CNBC, MacRumors, MacRumors, Gizmodo, Engadget, iPhone Hacks, SecurityWeek, Firstpost, AppleInsider, The Verge, Business Insider, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Macworld, BleepingComputer, and MacRumors
Tweets: @jacknicas and @robotodd
| Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: |
Amazon joins Microsoft in expressing support for regulating facial recognition tech, offers guidelines for the “responsible use” of the technology — Amazon supports the creation of a “legislative framework” covering facial recognition technology.
More:
Amazon Web Services, Bloomberg, CNN, BiometricUpdate, ZDNet, Vox, Wired, GeekWire, and PYMNTS.com. Tweets: @jlkoepke
| Johana Bhuiyan / Los Angeles Times: |
Investigation finds that Amazon at times uses tips earned by contracted drivers of its Flex program to cover their promised base pay — Amazon at times dips into the tips earned by contracted delivery drivers to cover their promised pay, a Times review of emails and receipts reveals.
More:
Engadget, The Digital Reader, KTLA, and Boing Boing
| Paul Sawers / VentureBeat: |
Google unveils Adiantum, a new form of encryption for data on lower-end smartphones and other devices with insufficient processing power — Google officially unveiled a new form of encryption today, designed to secure data stored on lower-end smartphones and other devices with insufficient processing power.
More:
Google Online Security Blog, Wired, The Keyword, SiliconANGLE, TechCrunch, Fossbytes, Droid Life, PhoneArena, Phandroid, BleepingComputer, The Nokia Blog, and ZDNet. Tweets: @wired
| Jason Hiner / CNET: |
Google Fiber to shut down in Louisville on April 15 after an experimental “nanotrenching” technique to deploy fiber in trenches only two inches deep, failed — Google's trick to more rapidly and cheaply deploy its super-speedy Google Fiber project has hit a wall …
More:
Google Fiber Blog, The Verge, Droid Life, Business Insider, TechSpot, SlashGear, TechRepublic, Android Police, 9to5Google, Pocketables, Android Authority, CNBC, and TechCrunch
Tweets: @uncleramrod, @marcusgreenwdrb, @lcburch, @snicklefritz35, @chetfaliszek, @ryson, @karlbode, @ocdtrekkie, @markennis, and @christopherotts. Thanks:@rogerwcheng
| Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: |
Apple says it has notified app developers to remove code that lets them record how a user interacts with their apps without explicit user consent — Apple is telling app developers to remove code that allows them to effectively record how a user interacts with their iPhone apps …
More:
Wired, SiliconANGLE, The Verge, Softpedia News, The Mac Observer, MacRumors, Engadget, Gizmodo, iPhone in Canada Blog, CNBC, iPhone Hacks, SlashGear, Mashable, MSPoweruser, ExtremeTech, Inquirer, TechSpot, and CNET
Tweets: @steved3, @zackwhittaker, and @panzer
| BBC: |
Germany orders Facebook to stop combining data from WhatsApp, Instagram, and third-party sites with data in a user's main Facebook account without their consent — Germany's competition authority has told Facebook it can only continue gathering so much data about users from beyond its app and website if it gets individuals' consent.
More:
New York Times, Bundeskartellamt, SiliconANGLE, Bloomberg, The Guardian, The Hill, Social Media Today, Wired, Financial Times, Geek News Central, Adweek, Recode, TechCo, Boing Boing, Mashable, CNBC, euronews, FutureSin, iPhone in Canada Blog, ZDNet, and The Register
Tweets: @henryfarrell, @zeynep, @matthewstoller, @bopinion, @matthewstoller, @martintisne, @ashk4n, @ceciliakang, @dorait, @orariccardo, @johnnyryan, @hadas_gold, and @mattnavarra
| Kurt Wagner / Recode: |
Facebook says it has restructured its “youth team” of 100+, will increase its investment in Messenger Kids, and that the meme app LOL will be shuttered — Facebook is restructuring its “youth team,” shutting down its new teen meme app LOL, and doubling down on Messenger Kids.| Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge: |
After Twitter lost monthly active users for the past three quarters, the company will stop disclosing the number from Q2, will report daily active users instead — Twitter's monthly user count has fallen for three quarters in a row, so to address the issue, Twitter has decided to stop announcing how many users it keeps losing.| Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
More:
Recode, CNBC, Twitter, New York Times, Social Media Today, The Nokia Blog, Twitter, PYMNTS.com, AdExchanger, Bloomberg, and hypebot
| Manish Singh / VentureBeat: |
News aggregator Nuzzel sold to Scroll, which is building a news subscription service; Nuzzel founder Jonathan Abrams and COO Kent Lindstrom to leave the company — News aggregator Nuzzel has found a new home and leadership and is undergoing some product changes.
More:
Scroll Blog, TechCrunch, Nieman Lab, and 9to5Mac
Tweets: @arctictony, @alexeheath, @annehelen, and @mattmcgee
| Dana Hull / Bloomberg: |
Self-driving car startup Aurora raises $530M, led by Sequoia, with Amazon, T. Rowe Price, and others participating, valuing the company at more than $2.5B — The self-driving startup Aurora Innovation Inc. has raised $530 million from a group of investors led by Sequoia Capital …
More:
TechCrunch, Aurora Blog, SiliconANGLE, Digital Trends, The Verge, CNBC, PYMNTS.com, Index Ventures, Telegraph, USA Today, CNET, Mashable, and Business Insider
| The Moscow Times: |
Report: Google pulls government-banned sites from Russian search results, blocks ~70% of sites blacklisted by Russia's communications regulator Roskomnadzor — Google has started to remove certain entries from its search results in Russia in compliance with long-standing demands from the authorities …
More:
vedomosti.ru, CNET, BuzzFeed News, Radio Free Europe/Radio …, RT, Meduza.io, and TASS. Tweets: @rj_gallagher
| Anna Hensel / VentureBeat: |
Facebook says it has 7M+ advertisers and 90M+ small businesses using its products, will soon allow businesses to respond to Instagram messages from Facebook — Facebook took another step today towards unifying its family of apps by announcing that businesses will now be able to receive … | Google Open Source Blog: |
Google says it is open sourcing ClusterFuzz, a tool it developed to automate bug detection in software via fuzzing, which has found 16K+ bugs in Chrome — Fuzzing is an automated method for detecting bugs in software that works by feeding unexpected inputs to a target program.
More:
VentureBeat and TechCrunch
| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
T-Mobile President says the company won't develop its own streaming TV bundle, will instead help with discovery and billing for existing subscriptions — T-Mobile doesn't want to compete with other carriers or teleco's by developing its own “skinny bundle” of streaming TV channels …
More:
YouTube, Android Authority, The Streamable, TmoNews, AppleInsider, Android Police, 9to5Mac, and AFTVnews
| Julia Boorstin / CNBC: |
Tim Armstrong is launching a new firm, the dtx company, to invest in and showcase direct-to-consumer startups via large scale real world pop-up events around US — - It's called “the dtx company” and will invest in direct-to-consumer product companies and launch “experiences” in parts of the U.S. that are underserved.
More:
Business Insider, PYMNTS.com, and VentureBeat
Tweets: @cnbc, @backlon, @profcarroll, @pkafka, @yoda, and @davegershgorn
| Olivia Zaleski / Bloomberg: |
Sources: on-demand delivery startup Postmates has confidentially filed for an IPO and could be valued at more than $1.85B — - Company could be valued at more than $1.85 billion in IPO — Postmates working with JPMorgan and Bank of America on listing| April Glaser / Slate: |
Sources: over the past week, Square, Chase, PayPal have pulled their services from 1776.shop, an online store affiliated with far-right organization Proud Boys — There's an e-commerce site associated with the Proud Boys. Square, Chase, and PayPal just pulled their services.
Tweets: @aprilaser, @lizthegrey, and @dangillmor
| Kurt Badenhausen / Forbes: |
Foot Locker has invested $100M in GOAT Group, which operates online sneaker marketplace GOAT; sources say the investment brings GOAT Group's valuation to $550M+ — The first Foot Locker store opened in 1974 in City of Industry, California. The company's mission over the past four-plus decades …
More:
Foot Locker, Inc., TechCrunch, and Investor's Business Daily
| Nicholas Megaw / Financial Times: |
Sources: SoftBank's Vision Fund to invest $440M in UK online banking startup OakNorth, valuing it at ~$2.8B — SoftBank's Vision Fund is set to invest $440m in British banking start-up OakNorth, according to two people close to the deal, in what will be the largest ever European fintech fundraising.
More:
City A.M., The Times & The Sunday Times, NASDAQ.com, and Reuters
Tweets: @arashmassoudi and @ft
| Dami Lee / The Verge: |
Spotify's new Terms of Service, which go into effect on March 1, will give Spotify the authority to immediately terminate accounts that use ad blockers — Cracking down on ad blockers — Spotify is now explicitly banning ad blockers, as stated in an updated Terms of Service policy sent out today.
More:
Music for everyone, Android Police, Gizmodo, iPhone Hacks, and SlashGear
| Charlie Osborne / ZDNet: |
Android vulnerability, affecting versions 7.0 to 9.0 and fixed in February update, lets attackers compromise devices if user clicks on an infected .PNG image — Be careful if you are sent an image from a suspicious source. — Opening a cute cat meme or innocent landscape photo may seem harmless enough …
More:
SiliconANGLE, Firstpost, NDTV Gadgets 360, Phandroid, Fortune, The Register, BGR, and Inquirer
| Max Willens / Digiday: |
IAC's Dotdash, which owns Investopedia and remnants of About.com, posts $131M revenue in 2018, up 44% YoY, and expects 21% revenue growth YoY for 2019 — In a year where publishers scrambled to diversify their revenues and their business models, Dotdash posted breakout growth stemming from a course it charted a long time ago.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.
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:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future — Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future — Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
Recruiters, be that zeroth candidate — Welcome again! Earlier, we looked at how personality assessments are evaluation tools that help look at candidates beyond resumes. Let's look at how to use …
Recruiters, be that zeroth candidate — Welcome again! Earlier, we looked at how personality assessments are evaluation tools that help look at candidates beyond resumes. Let's look at how to use …
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.
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:
Bribing Is The Oldest Form Of Hacking
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:
Ed Helms Answers Your Hard Questions
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.
Great Chat:
Are VC jobs truly AI Proof? (Marc thinks so)
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.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Workday's new head of product wants you to like Workday as much as he does
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Lenny's Podcast:
How Revolut trains world-class product managers: The "local CEO" model, raw intellect over experience, and a cultural obsession with building wow products | Dmitry Zlokazov (Head of Product)
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:
Qasar Younis from Applied Intuition
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 3:40 AM ET, February 8, 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.
From Mediagazer
Washington Post:Wall Street Journal:
Financial Times:
Upcoming Tech Events
Earlier Picks
| Jeff Buchanan / Xconomy: |
| Stephen Nellis / Reuters: |
More:
Tom's Guide, MacRumors, InvestorPlace, Patently Apple, Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Apple Must, Telecoms.com, BGR, VentureBeat, iPhone in Canada Blog, Inquirer, Silicon Valley Business …, and iDownloadBlog.com
Tweets: @benbajarin, @horwitz, and @greengart
| Victoria Song / Gizmodo: |
More:
Skype Blogs, The Verge, Gizmochina, Washington Post, BleepingComputer, PCWorld, Fortune, BGR, TechSpot, Ars Technica, KnowTechie, and Windows Central. Tweets: @skype