Techmeme
February 20, 2020, 11:40 PM

Top News

Ben Collins / NBC News:
Twitter confirms it is testing bright labels beneath lies and misinfo posted by politicians and public figures, and points-based “community badges” for users  —  A leaked demo features bright red and orange badges for tweets that have been deemed “harmfully misleading.”
Malathi Nayak / Bloomberg:
Trump administration urges Supreme Court to reject Alphabet's appeal against Oracle, on the same day Trump attended a re-election fundraiser by Larry Ellison  —  The Trump administration urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject an appeal by Alphabet Inc.'s Google, boosting Oracle Corp.'s bid …
Nico Grant / Bloomberg:
Sources: around 300 workers at Oracle offices around the world walked out on Thursday to protest Larry Ellison's fundraiser for Trump on Wednesday  —  - Chairman's fundraiser for Trump re-election sparked anger  — Activism more muted than at tech companies like Google
Christopher Dring / GamesIndustry.biz:
Sony and Facebook say they will not attend Game Developers Conference this year due to coronavirus concerns; Facebook to make Oculus announcements online  —  Oculus announcements will now take place online  —  PlayStation and Facebook Gaming/Oculus will not be attending …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft announces Defender ATP for Linux, will offer the antivirus software for Android and iOS later this year as part of its enterprise security platform  —  New Defender mobile apps will be available later this year  —  Microsoft is planning to bring its Defender antivirus software to Android and iOS later this year.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is weighing an option to set third-party browser and email apps as defaults on iPhones and iPads and third-party music services on the HomePod  —  - Company considers letting users change web browser, email app  — Spotify, Pandora may be allowed to stream directly on HomePod
Craig Silverman / BuzzFeed News:
Google removed ~600 Android apps, which were installed 4.5B+ times, and banned the developers behind them from Play Store for ad fraud and “disruptive” ads  —  Google has removed close to 600 Android apps and banned their developers from the Play store and its ad networks as part …
Sam Byford / The Verge:
HTC announces new Cosmos VR headset variants: $899 Elite, lower-end Play, and XR with “high-quality XR passthrough cameras”, giving it AR capabilities  —  One for gamers, one for AR, one for Angry Birds  —  HTC is expanding its range of virtual reality headsets today with multiple new variants of the Vive Cosmos.
New York Times:
Morgan Stanley says it will buy online discount brokerage E-Trade for about $13B, in the biggest takeover by an American lender since the 2008 financial crisis  —  The $13 billion deal will give a powerful Wall Street firm control of a major presence in the world of online brokerages.
Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Sprint and T-Mobile have agreed to amend their merger agreement to give Deutsche Telekom a higher ownership stake in the new combined company  —  - Sprint and T-Mobile have agreed to amend their merger deal agreement to give Deutsche Telekom a higher ownership stake in the new combined company.
Joseph Cox / VICE:
Researcher says Cameo exposed user data including email addresses, hashed and salted passwords, phone numbers, and messages via a misconfiguration in its app  —  Cameo, the increasingly popular app for paying celebrities to record short personal videos, exposed a wealth of user data including …
Vincent Woo / New York Magazine:
Internal documents and interviews with former staff and students detail Lambda coding school's misleading claims about graduate outcomes and curriculum quality  —  If you visit the website of Lambda School, a “boot camp” for people who want to quickly learn how to code …
Craig Timberg / Washington Post:
Sources detail the rising clout of Joel Kaplan and other conservatives at Facebook during the Trump administration  —  Facebook created “Project P” — for propaganda — in the hectic weeks after the 2016 presidential election and quickly found dozens of pages that had peddled false news reports ahead of Donald Trump's surprise victory.

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