Techmeme
February 13, 2018, 1:45 AM

Top News

Wired:
A behind-the-scenes look at two tumultuous years at Facebook as it battled with fake news, its impact on the election, global affairs, and users' minds  —  ONE DAY IN late February of 2016, Mark Zuckerberg sent a memo to all of Facebook's employees to address some troubling behavior in the ranks.
Matt Day / The Seattle Times:
Source: in a rare cutback, Amazon is laying off several hundred corporate employees in Seattle and hundreds elsewhere across its global operations  —  Amazon is cutting several hundred jobs in Seattle, and hundreds elsewhere, a rare layoff that appears to fall predominantly on its established consumer retail business.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is changing its iOS development strategy, moving away from an annual schedule crammed with major features and prioritizing reliability  —  The company is shaking up its development program to focus more on key features and push back others to the following year.
Taylor Lorenz / The Daily Beast:
600K+ people sign Change.org petition calling for Snapchat redesign to be reverted as celebs including Chrissy Teigen, Kylie Jenner, MKBHD criticize update  —  Last week Snapchat rolled out its biggest redesign since the app launched in 2011.  —  The company split the app into two sections …
Nicole Perlroth / New York Times:
Researchers: cyberattack caused disruption to Pyeongchang2018.com and local internet, which grounded drones and more during Winter Olympics' opening ceremony  —  A cyberattack caused the internet disruptions during the Winter Olympics' opening ceremony on Friday night, Olympic officials and security experts said.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
IDC research director says Essential shipped 88,000 smartphones in the first six months after its May 2017 launch  —  Andy Rubin's Essential Phone faces a harsh reality in the high-end market  —  Essential, Android co-founder Andy Rubin's new smartphone venture, had a rough go of it last year trying …
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Uber will require drivers in the US to take six-hour breaks after driving a total of 12 hours in a single shift  —  The app will use GPS and telematics to track driving time  —  In an effort to combat drowsy driving, Uber announced today that it would require its most frequent drivers …
Aaron Tilley / The Information:
Source: Amazon is designing its own AI chip for use in Echo and other Alexa-powered devices, following its 2015 acquisition of chip maker Annapurna Labs  —  Amazon.com is developing a chip designed for artificial intelligence to work on the Echo and other hardware powered by Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant …
iFixit:
Teardown finds HomePod has great build quality, but a saw is needed to open the device; some parts, including the fabric mesh, can be easily removed  —  Tools Featured in this Teardown  —  Introduction  —  Apple's beloved voice assistant is back again, this time in more of a Mac Pro wearing a jacket.
Louise Matsakis / Wired:
Snap Map now available on its own site and embeddable online as individual stories, a collection from a location or event, or stories from a specific area  —  WHEN HURRICANE HARVEY wreaked destruction in Houston last August, the country turned not just to cable television, but also to Snapchat.
MIX / The Next Web:
Another cryptocurrency startup, LoopX, pulls exit scam, deleting its site and online accounts after raising $4.5M in a series of ICOs in January  —  Another day, another exit scam: an emerging cryptocurrency startup more commonly known as LoopX has suddenly vanished out of thin air along with millions worth of its investors' savings.
Fitz Tepper / TechCrunch:
Instagram tests a feature showing users who has taken screenshots of their stories  —  Instagram is testing a feature that will show users when someone else takes a screenshot of their story.  Users included in the test are getting a warning that the next time they take a screenshot …

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