Techmeme
May 17, 2018, 10:55 PM

Top News

Zack Whittaker / ZDNet:
A bug in the website of LocationSmart, which sells real-time phone location data, let anyone track people's locations across North America without consent  —  The bug allowed one Carnegie Mellon researcher to track anyone's cell phone in real time.  —  A company that collects the real …
Wall Street Journal:
Analysis of 1,450 ICOs finds 271 have red flags including plagiarized white papers, fake execs, promised returns; investors poured $1B+ into these 271 offerings  —  A Wall Street Journal analysis of 1,450 cryptocurrency offerings reveals rampant plagiarism, identity theft and promises of improbable returns
Dan Primack / Axios:
Google declines to provide the names of hair salon and restaurant used in controversial Google Duplex demo, or say whether the calls were edited  —  Google made headlines by demonstrating an AI-powered voice assistant that made haircut and restaurant reservations, without betraying that it isn't human.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Strategy Analytics: in Q1, Amazon shipped 4M Echos globally, taking 43.6% of the market, as Google shipped 2.4M Home speakers, and Apple shipped 600K HomePods  —  Apple sold an estimated 600,000 HomePod speakers during the first quarter of 2018, according to new estimates shared this morning by Strategy Analytics.
Max Chafkin / Bloomberg:
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Instagram will now let users share posts from their own and public accounts to Stories as a sticker on Android; coming to iOS next week  —  The line between posts and stories is getting even thinner  —  The line between Instagram posts and stories is getting even thinner today.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
PayPal confirms it is acquiring Swedish payments company iZettle for $2.2B in an all-cash deal, making it PayPal's biggest-ever transaction  —  PayPal is taking its biggest bet yet on point-of-sale transactions, small businesses, and markets outside of the US, as it looks to raise its game against Square …
Apple:
Apple's Everyone Can Code curriculum for Swift is expanding to schools serving blind and deaf students in the US  —  Apple is teaming up with leading educators for blind and deaf communities across the US to bring accessible coding to their schools.  Beginning this fall …
Alex Barinka / Bloomberg:
Special purpose acquisition company Landcadia buys food delivery startup Waitr in a $308M deal that will make Waitr a public company when the acquisition closes  —  - Landcadia Holdings agrees to pay $300 million for Waitr  — Tilman Fertitta has been looking for deals since 2016
Peter Aldhous / BuzzFeed:
Parabon NanoLabs says it has loaded DNA data from ~100 crime scenes to genealogy database GEDmatch and has found matches to suspect's relatives in ~20 cases  —  “I think there is going to be press around this very soon,” a company scientist told BuzzFeed News.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook to start testing ads in Stories today in the US, Mexico, and Brazil, says Stories has 150M daily users, defines a user as anyone who watches one story  —  After 14 months of silence since launching, Facebook Stories has finally announced a 150 million daily active user count for its Snapchat Stories clone.
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Facebook announces partnership with US-based think tank Atlantic Council aimed at helping deter manipulation of the platform during elections around the world  —  Facebook today will announce a partnership with the Atlantic Council aimed at helping deter manipulation of the platform during elections around the world.

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Earlier Picks

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