Techmeme
May 29, 2019, 12:10 AM

Top News

Geoffrey A. Fowler / Washington Post:
Study: many iOS apps, including the Washington Post's, use “background app refresh” to send tracking info like location and IP address, even late at night  —  Apple says, “What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.”  Our privacy experiment showed 5,400 hidden app trackers guzzled our data — in a single week.
Apple:
Apple launches new iPod touch with A10 Fusion chip, support for Group FaceTime, and a 256GB storage option, available to order now starting at $199  —  Featuring Support for Group FaceTime and AR Experiences  —  Cupertino, California — Apple today introduced the new iPod touch with enhancements to power …
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Facebook, Twitter suspend accounts related to a disinformation campaign that seemed to originate in Iran; messages targeted reporters, policymakers, dissidents  —  Facebook and Twitter each said on Tuesday they had disabled a sprawling disinformation campaign that appeared to originate in Iran …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Flipboard says hackers had access to its servers for 9+ months and stole some customers' info, including digital tokens linking profiles to 3rd-party services  —  Extent of the hack is unknown, but Flipboard said hackers had access to its systems for almost nine months.
Guilherme Rambo / 9to5Mac:
Leaked screenshots reveal iOS 13's Dark Mode, new “Find My” app icon, and a redesigned Reminders app that helps you quickly sort by Scheduled, Flagged, more  —  Not a mockup, some information redacted to protect our sources  —  We're less than a week away from WWDC …
Daniel Palmer / CoinDesk:
Chat app Kik launches a crowdfunding campaign to support a likely court fight with SEC over its 2017 ICO, says it's spent $5M so far and pledges $5M more in BTC  —  Canada-based messaging app firm Kik has launched a crypto crowdfunding campaign to support a likely court battle with the U.S. Securities …
Alex Wilhelm / Crunchbase News:
LinkedIn acquires Drawbridge, a startup that helps companies with identity management using machine learning; Drawbridge has raised nearly $69M  —  LinkedIn just acquired its 22nd-known company: Drawbridge.  The smaller company will integrate with LinkedIn's marketing services.
Sam Rutherford / Gizmodo:
HP unveils its revamped VR Backpack with an 8th-gen Intel Core i7 CPU, an Nvidia RTX 2080 GPU, and swappable batteries, coming this summer for $3,300  —  Does a VR headset still qualify as a standalone device if the computer powering the headset is strapped to your back rather than built into the goggles?
Eduard Kovacs / SecurityWeek:
Researcher finds about a million older Windows devices currently vulnerable to the wormable Remote Desktop flaw BlueKeep, amid spike in port scanning activity  —  Nearly one million devices are vulnerable to attacks involving the Windows vulnerability dubbed BlueKeep and it appears that hackers …
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
Twitch temporarily disables the ability for new accounts to livestream after trolls streamed porn, illegal content, and hateful imagery on a section of the site  —  Citing safety as a main priority  —  Twitch has disabled the ability for new accounts to live stream following an attack …
New York Times:
Chinese food delivery apps generated an estimated 1.6M tons of packaging waste in 2017, a ninefold jump from two years before, growing to ~2M tons in 2018  —  The noodles and barbecue arrive within 30 minutes.  The containers they come in could be around for hundreds of years thereafter.
Daisuke Wakabayashi / New York Times:
Leaked doc: Google has ~121K temporary and contract workers globally, compared with ~102K full-time staff, raising concerns about its growing reliance on them  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Mindy Cruz had an offer for a full-time position at another big tech company when she accepted a temporary job as a recruiter at Google in 2017.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
MacKenzie Bezos to give over half her $37B fortune to charity, joining the Giving Pledge with Brian Armstrong, Ben Delo, others; Jeff Bezos has not signed  —  MacKenzie Bezos, the world's third-richest woman following her divorce from Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, has signed the Giving Pledge …
Gerrit De Vynck / Bloomberg:
The rise of Chrome and its open source Chromium sibling, often used in new browser projects, raises concerns about Google's effective power over the web  —  - Once underdog, browser now labeled ‘spyware,’ ‘monopolist’  — Company accused of stalling approvals for rival browsers
Sam Machkovech / Ars Technica:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
After a long tug of war, W3C says it will not publish future HTML and DOM standards, instead letting the WHATWG, a group of browser vendors, do so  —  W3C hands over development of HTML and DOM standards to browser vendors (WHATWG).  —  An industry group made up the four major browser vendors …
Joseph Marks / Washington Post:
Experts say ransomware victims like Baltimore have not taken sufficient measures to protect against the EternalBlue exploit two years after it first leaked  —  THE KEY  —  Critics and defenders of the National Security Agency faced off this weekend over a New York Times report detailing …

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More News

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Earlier Picks

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