Techmeme
February 14, 2020, 11:45 AM

Top News

Takashi Mochizuki / Bloomberg:
Sources: Sony's PlayStation 5's retail price may be as much as $450 per unit due to scarce components, which have pushed the manufacturing costs  —  - May wait for Microsoft's Xbox group to make first pricing move  — New PlayStation VR headset also planned after PS5 launch
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
DOJ has charged the owner of Helix, a dark web Bitcoin mixer service operating from 2014-2017, for allegedly laundering bitcoins worth $300M+ at the time  —  This is the first case the DOJ has brought against a Bitcoin mixer.  —  US authorities have arrested and charged an Ohio man for running a …
Benjamin Mullin / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Google is in talks with publishers, mostly outside the US, about paying a licensing fee for content that would be in a premium news product  —  The search giant is in talks with some publishers about paying a fee for content that would be part of a premium news product
Bloomberg Law:
California Supreme Court rules that Apple violated CA law by not paying employees at its stores for time spent on mandatory bag and iPhone searches  —  Listen  —  Apple Inc. violated California law when it failed to pay employees for time they spend waiting for mandatory bag and iPhone searches …
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Facebook says it will allow influencers to produce sponsored content for US politicians and political campaigns, if the posts are clearly identified as ads  —  Bloomberg's bad memes might just be the beginning  —  Facebook will allow influencers to produce sponsored content for political campaigns …
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Behind Signal's push to go mainstream by adding features like iPad support, ephemeral images and video, downloadable customizable stickers, and emoji reactions  —  The encryption app is putting a $50 million infusion from WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton to good use, building out features to help it go mainstream.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Google has removed 500+ malicious Chrome extensions from its Web Store, likely affecting millions of users, that were part of a long-running ad fraud network  —  A network of malicious Chrome extensions was injecting malicious ads in millions of Chrome installs.
Danny Crichton / TechCrunch:
DOJ announces a 16-count superseding indictment against Huawei and its CFO Meng Wanzhou that includes charges of racketeering and conspiracy to steal IP  —  Ratcheting up its pressure campaign against Huawei and its affiliates, the Department of Justice and the FBI announced today …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
YouTube TV to end support for subscriptions through Apple in-app purchases on March 13  —  YouTube today sent out emails to customers who are subscribed to its YouTube TV service through Apple's App Store, letting them know that ‌App Store‌ subscriptions are going to be discontinued in March.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Judge orders a temporary block on Microsoft's JEDI cloud contract with Pentagon, in response to a suit filed by Amazon  —  - A judge ordered Thursday a temporary block on the JEDI cloud contract in response to a lawsuit filed by Amazon.  — Last month, Amazon filed a motion asking the court …
Social Science One:
Social Science One and Facebook say they are now making a dataset with ~38M URLs available to academic researchers, two years after announcing the initiative  —  We are excited to announce that Social Science One and Facebook have completed, and are now making available to academic researchers …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Facebook's NPE Team releases Hobbi, a photo and video sharing app designed for documenting personal projects and hobbies  —  Facebook is adding another app to its group of experimental projects from the NPE Team, an initiative it announced last year focused on rapidly trying out new ideas in social to see how users react.

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Zoe Schiffer / The Verge:
Kim Zetter / VICE:
Theodore Schleifer / Vox: