Techmeme
November 6, 2019, 8:10 AM

Top News

Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Facebook says ~100 app developers might have had improper access to Groups member data even after the company announced restrictions to Groups API last year  —  At least 11 accessed data in the last two months  —  Facebook says that even after it locked down its Groups system last year …
Pavel Alpeyev / Bloomberg:
SoftBank reports a loss of $6.5B, its first quarterly operating loss in 14 years, and a loss of $8.9B in the Vision Fund, including a charge of $4.6B for WeWork  —  SoftBank Group Corp. reported its first quarterly operating loss in 14 years after writing down the value of some of its marquee investments …
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
FTC says AT&T has agreed to pay $60M to settle the agency's 2014 lawsuit that alleged it lied to customers about “unlimited” data plans that it throttled  —  Unlimited should mean unlimited!  —  On Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission announced that AT&T will pay $60 million to settle a case with the agency.
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
Dylan Byers / NBC News:
Yaël Eisenstat / Washington Post:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google promises one more update coming in December for the original Google Pixel, which will then be past its three-year security update support window  —  Pour one out for Pixel  —  The Google Pixel and Pixel XL will get “one final software update” in December, the company confirms to The Verge.
Washington Post:
Apple and TikTok drew criticism from lawmakers, especially Sen. Josh Hawley, for skipping a congressional hearing meant to explore tech industry's ties to China  —  Apple and TikTok took a lashing Tuesday for skipping a congressional hearing meant to explore the tech industry and its ties to China …
New York Times:
A warrant granted in Florida this July let a detective override GEDmatch's privacy rules to search a database of 1.2M users; experts say it may set a precedent  —  Privacy experts say it could set a precedent, opening up all consumer DNA sites to law enforcement agencies across the country.
Aaron Wood / Cointelegraph:
Stellar Development Foundation has burned 55B XLM tokens, worth ~$4.7B, shrinking the supply from 105B to 50B; XLM's price jumped as much as ~25% on news  —  The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) announced a new mandate today for its network's development, stating that it has burned over 55 billion Stellar Lumens (XLM) tokens.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Kaspersky identifies DarkUniverse, an APT that had been active from 2009 but went silent after a mention in Shadow Brokers' 2017 leak, and details 20 victims  —  The NSA had superior insight into foreign nation-state hacking operations than many cyber-security vendors.
Nicholas Quah / Hot Pod News:
Members of the podcasting industry anonymously discuss common issues in the field: inexperienced leadership, poorly managed ad sales, accessibility, more  —  Over the past month, we've been running a call for opinions built around a fairly straightforward question: “What are you most frustrated by?”
Bloomberg:
NTSB: the Uber self-driving test car that killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona last year wasn't programmed to recognize and react to jaywalkers  —  - U.S. safety board releases documents on fatal 2018 accident  — Pedestrian hit, killed by experimental self-driving Uber car
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Facebook Portal TV review: big screen video chatting feels futuristic and, with Alexa built in, the device is compelling enough at $149 but unlikely to be a hit  —  Facebook's new Portal TV video chat device won't do much to take away share from Apple Inc., Roku Inc. or Amazon in the TV space.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Uber will sell ads to restaurants in its Uber Eats app, where it takes 10.7% of gross bookings as adjusted net revenue, to try to lure more food delivery orders  —  A new revenue stream it won't split with drivers  —  Uber will become an ad platform, selling space inside its Eats app …
Brandon Kochkodin / Bloomberg:
Users on Reddit say they have discovered a flaw in Robinhood's system that lets them trade stocks with excess borrowed funds, essentially free money  —  A glitch in the Robinhood Markets Inc. system is allowing users to trade stocks with excess borrowed funds, giving them access to what amounts to free money.

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Patrick Howell O'Neill / MIT Technology Review:
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