Techmeme
November 6, 2019, 11:10 PM

Top News

Washington Post:
DOJ charges two ex-Twitter employees, arresting one, with spying for Saudi Arabia by snooping on kingdom critics; one allegedly accessed 6,000 accounts in 2015  —  The Justice Department has charged two former Twitter employees with spying for Saudi Arabia in a case that raises concerns …
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
After the deaths of five people at a “party house”, Airbnb unveils new safety policies: verifying 100% of listings, a 24/7 “neighbor hotline”, and more  —  Airbnb CEO: We intend to verify 100% of listings  —  Airbnb is pushing out several new safety features in the wake …
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Source: Alphabet is probing execs, including Chief Legal Officer David Drummond, over inappropriate relationships, hiring an outside law firm  —  - The board of Google parent company Alphabet is conducting an investigation into sexual misconduct by executives, and has hired a law firm to assist.
Reuters:
Court filing demanding subpoenaed docs reveals California has been probing Facebook's disclosure of user data to Cambridge Analytica and others for 18 months  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - California is investigating Facebook Inc's disclosure of user data to Cambridge Analytica and other partners …
C Nivedita / Reuters:
Square reports Q3 revenue of $1.27B, up 44% YoY, as gross payment volume grows to $28.2B, up 25% YoY, and Cash App revenue more than doubles to $159M  —  (Reuters) - Payments processor Square Inc (SQ.N) beat analysts' estimates for quarterly profit on Wednesday, as it earned more from its subscription and services business.
More: ZDNet
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Google debuts App Defense Alliance, a partnership with ESET, Lookout, Zimperium to catch Android malware early by streamlining and boosting data sharing efforts  —  The newly formed App Defense Alliance will try to solve a malware problem that has bedeviled the Play Store since inception.
Christina Farr / CNBC:
Apple and the US Department of Veterans announce that veterans can now access their health records on their iPhone via Apple's Health app  —  - The goal is to make it a lot easier for vets to access their medical information, even if they seek care from multiple providers.
Ben Dooley / New York Times:
Following SoftBank's first loss in 14 years, CEO Masayoshi Son says his WeWork bet was a mistake, describing it as a “harsh lesson”, and vows to move forward  —  Masayoshi Son defended the Japanese company's investment, while admitting he misjudged the American firm's founder, Adam Neumann.
Pavel Alpeyev / Bloomberg:
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Twitter announces Topics, which lets users follow 300+ subjects in their timeline, rolling out from Thursday; topics include sports and gaming but not politics  —  Starting with more than 300 subjects across sports, gaming, and entertainment  —  Recently, a friend told me he wanted to spend …
Reuters:
Court docs: Facebook execs discussed a plan in 2012 to cut off access to user data for developers seen as future rivals while pushing a user privacy narrative  —  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc (FB.O) began cutting off access to user data for app developers from 2012 to squash potential rivals …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google says it is open sourcing the phone-based VR software of Cardboard, less than a month after the company discontinued its Daydream View VR headset  —  Maybe the last nail in the coffin for phone-based VR  —  In October, Google officially discontinued its Daydream View VR headset …
Dave Gershgorn / OneZero:
Conor Dougherty / New York Times:
Apple, Facebook, and Google have pledged a combined $4.5B to end California's housing crisis, but the money will do little to solve systemic issues  —  Efforts by Apple, Facebook and Google to address the California housing crunch must contend with the forces that created it.
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
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 …
New York Times:
In an attempt to curb gaming addiction, China releases new rules for gamers under 18, including a 90-minute daily limit and no gaming between 10PM and 8AM  —  Officials say regulations are meant to curb video game addiction, which they blame for a rise in nearsightedness and poor academic performance.
Chris O'Brien / VentureBeat:
Avaaz: false stories on Facebook had 158M views in 2019, greater than before the 2016 election, with 86M views in the last 3 months, up 3x over the prior 3  —  Facebook has already powered 158 million views of fake U.S. political news in 2019 and is poised to see an explosion of disinformation next year …
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Chronosphere, founded by two ex-Uber engineers, raises $11M Series A for a scalable, cloud-native production monitoring tool able to handle Uber-level scale  —  Chronoshere, a startup from two ex-Uber engineers, who helped create the open source M3 monitoring project to handle Uber-level scale …
Tweets: @sameerpatel
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Apple has updated its privacy pages for the fourth year in a row, now includes several technical whitepapers detailing some of its technologies  —  For the fourth year in a row, Apple has updated its privacy pages.  —  Every year the tech giant's refreshes the privacy portion of its website …

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.
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.
Zoho:
5 common accounting mistakes  —  This is a guest post by Yaali Bizappln Solutions.  A lot of businesses manage their customers and finances on separate platforms.  This disconnect often leads to missed invoices …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 11/21 - What The DOJ Wants Google To Do
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 11:10 PM ET, November 6, 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

Dan Seifert / The Verge:

Earlier Picks