Techmeme
February 8, 2019, 12:15 PM

Top News

Jeff Bezos:
Jeff Bezos publishes letters from National Enquirer owner AMI that he says show threats to publish his nude photos unless he stops probing AMI's reporting  —  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.
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
Sprint sues AT&T over its “5G Evolution” branding, claims it is false and deceptive advertising that is damaging the reputation of actual 5G  —  After AT&T decided to start rolling out “5G Evolution” branding on phones and networks that use 4G LTE Advanced technology …
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 …
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.
The Moscow Times:
Report: Google pulls government-banned sites from Russian search results, blocking ~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 …
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 …
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.
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.
Brendan Nyhan / Medium:
Research comparing 2016 and 2018 suggests Facebook's efforts to limit the reach of fake news are working, but the platform's scale remains an alluring target  —  After the shock of the 2016 presidential election, many Americans found psychological refuge in a simple explanation for why Donald Trump won: “fake news.”
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:
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 …
Securelist:
Kaspersky Lab's DDoS trends report: number of DDoS attacks dropped 13% YoY in 2018, but the average duration of attacks grew from 95 min in Q1 to 218 min in Q4  —  News overview  —  In Q4 2018, security researchers detected a number of new botnets, which included not only Mirai clones for a change.
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.
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.

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
The crossroads of AI and SaaS  —  Enabling businesses of all sizes to build products in-house and disqualifying SaaS tools that are not AI-powered.  In a span of just two years, AI has made a name for itself as the key driver for innovation.
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 12/20 - Gemini Flash Thinking
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:15 PM 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.

More News

Julia Boorstin / CNBC:

Earlier Picks