Techmeme
August 19, 2019, 10:00 PM

Top News

Twitter:
Twitter says it proactively suspended ~200K “spammy” accounts, before they became “substantially active”, alongside its initial ban of 936 China-linked accounts  —  We are disclosing a significant state-backed information operation focused on the situation in Hong Kong …
Nathaniel Gleicher / Facebook:
After a tip from Twitter, Facebook removes 7 Pages, 3 Groups, 5 accounts originating in China “involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior” regarding Hong Kong  —  Today, we removed seven Pages, three Groups and five Facebook accounts involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior …
Twitter:
Twitter says it will no longer accept advertising from state-controlled news media entities, but the rule does not apply to “taxpayer-funded entities”  —  Our singular mission is to serve the public conversation.  This mission applies to every part of our service, including our advertising and promotional products.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Twitter accuses China of running a disinformation campaign against Hong Kong protesters, attempting to “sow political discord”, suspends 936 associated accounts  —  KEY POINTS  — Twitter said Monday it suspended hundreds of accounts that are believed to be tied to a …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is planning to roll out Apple TV+, its subscription service, by November and is considering $9.99/month pricing after a free trial  —  - Company builds array of new services to augment hardware sales  —  Apple Inc. plans to roll out the Apple TV+ movie and TV subscription service …
Financial Times:
Sources: Apple has committed $6B+ for original shows and movies, many featuring huge names, ahead of Apple TV+'s launch, expected within the next two months  —  Apple has committed more than $6bn for original shows and movies ahead of the launch of its new video streaming service …
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Without evidence or any attempt at further explanation, Trump accuses Google of manipulating millions of votes in 2016's election, says Google “should be sued”  —  The President this morning lashed out at Google on Twitter, accusing the company of manipulating millions of votes …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Nvidia says that its GeForce Now game streaming service, which is in public beta for Mac, PC, and Shield TV, will be coming to Android later this year  —  Ahead of the next Stadia Connect livestream where Google will announce more games, Nvidia revealed that its competing GeForce Now streaming service will be coming to Android.
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
The first public jailbreak in years for up-to-date iPhones has been posted online, researchers say, after a bug that was patched in iOS 12.3 was reintroduced  —  Apple accidentally unpatched a vulnerability it had already fixed, making current versions of iOS vulnerable to hackers.
Samit Sarkar / Polygon:
Sony Interactive Entertainment says it is acquiring Insomniac Games, developer of PS4 hit Marvel's Spider-Man; Insomniac to join PlayStation's Worldwide Studios  —  Developer of Ratchet & Clank, Spyro, and Marvel's Spider-Man joins the PlayStation family  —  Sony is buying Insomniac Games …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Disney+ to launch in Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand along with the US in November, streaming on all major platforms except Fire TV  —  Disney today confirmed its first global launches for the company's upcoming Disney+ subscription service, and it outlined which devices …
Kadhim Shubber / Financial Times:
FTC chairman says he intends to complete the Facebook antitrust probe before 2020 election and WhatsApp-Instagram integration would make breaking it up harder  —  Joseph Simons, the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, said on Monday that Facebook's effort to integrate Instagram …
Arielle Pardes / Wired:
Reddit to test live video streaming for users, from 9am to 5pm through the end of this week, to be entirely moderated by Reddit employees  —  ON FRIDAY, A series of cryptic posts began to appear on r/pan, a Reddit community that seemed to materialize out of nowhere.
Reuters:
Google shuts down its free service to show carriers weak spots in their coverage, sources say to avoid potential scrutiny over sharing data from its users  —  NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's Google has shut down a service it provided to wireless carriers globally that showed …
Tushar Mehta / XDA Developers:
Microsoft brings SMS Organizer, its Android app to filter spam texts and get smart notifications about bills, flights, and more, from India to Australia, UK, US  —  Microsoft's aspirations of creating and selling smartphones may have collapsed but its association with smartphones has not ended.
Steve Dent / Engadget:
Spotify's Premium Family Plan is getting parental controls with an explicit content filter and a Family Mix personalized playlist for the whole family  —  Spotify is rolling out a new Premium Family Plan with a much-awaited setting.  Parents will now have the ability to filter out songs with swearing …
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Binance says it plans to launch Venus, an “independent regional version of Libra”, which will develop “localized” stablecoins pegged to fiat currencies  —  The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance is planning to launch “Venus,” calling it an …
Aaron Tilley / The Information:
Bill Stasior, former longtime Apple exec who oversaw Siri, has joined Microsoft as corporate VP of technology, reporting to CTO Kevin Scott  —  Bill Stasior, the longtime former Apple executive overseeing its Siri digital assistant, has joined Microsoft, continuing a reshuffling …
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Facebook is expanding its data abuse bounty program, first introduced after Cambridge Analytica, to Instagram after more data incidents  —  Facebook is expanding its data abuse bug bounty to Instagram.  —  The social media giant, which owns Instagram, first rolled out its data abuse bounty …
Brian Martin / Twitter:
Twitter open-sources Rezolus telemetry tool, designed to uncover resource utilization spikes too brief to be captured through normal metrics systems  —  We are open-sourcing Rezolus, our high-resolution systems performance telemetry agent.  Rezolus began in an effort to help uncover performance anomalies …
Tiernan Ray / Fortune:
Cerebras Systems unveils the world's biggest semiconductor chip that is the size of a large mousepad, with 400K cores, 1.2T transistors, and 18GB of SRAM memory  —  Tucked in the Los Altos hills near the Stanford University campus, in a low-slung bunker of offices across from a coffee shop …

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Sam Byford / The Verge:
Olga Kharif / Bloomberg: