Techmeme
May 25, 2018, 3:05 PM

Top News

David Meyer / Fortune:
Digital privacy activist Max Schrems files official GDPR complaints against Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram over forced consent  —  Europe's sweeping new data privacy regime came into effect this morning, and privacy activists are not wasting time in flexing their muscles.
BBC:
Some US news sites like the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune restrict access from EU as GDPR goes into effect  —  Some high-profile US news websites are temporarily unavailable in Europe after new EU data protection rules came into effect.  —  The Chicago Tribune and LA Times were among …
Adam Satariano / New York Times:
Head of European Data Protection Board, responsible for GDPR application, criticizes US sites limiting access from EU, says there was plenty of time to prepare  —  LONDON — American news outlets including The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and The Arizona Daily Star abruptly blocked access …
Adam Satariano / New York Times:
As Europe enacts GDPR, EU officials are encouraging countries like Brazil, Japan, and South Korea to adopt similar laws by tying data protection to trade deals  —  LONDON — The notices are flooding people's inboxes en masse, from large technology companies, including Facebook and Uber …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Essential, a startup co-founded by Android creator Andy Rubin, is considering selling itself and has canceled development of a new smartphone  —  - Company cancels development of second version of smartphone  — Startup has spent over $100 million on product development
Marie Mawad / Bloomberg:
Facebook's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun says company is designing its own energy-efficient chips to help with analyzing and filtering live video content  —  - Company is working on more energy-efficient semiconductors  — AI scientist LeCun says more software cos working on hardware
Timothy B. Lee / Ars Technica:
Unsealed indictment shows federal prosecutors have charged three men with crimes related to December death of a Kansas man fatally shot in a swatting prank  —  Gamers charged with obstruction for deleting possibly incriminating messages.  —  Federal prosecutors have unsealed an indictment …
City Attorney of San Francisco:
San Francisco announces new regulations requiring scooter startups like Lime, Spin, and Bird, to halt operations by June 4 and apply for permits by June 7  —  New city law halting unpermitted scooter operations in effect June 4, scooter permitting system now activated
Facebook:
Micah Singleton / The Verge:
YouTube Music review: easy to use with an excellent home screen and recommendation engine but confusing price structure and missing power user features  —  After years of false starts, YouTube is now serious about music streaming  —  YouTube Music, the video service's first full-fledged …
Richard Lai / Engadget:
HTC's Vive Focus VR system update adds ability to receive calls, notifications, and messages from the U12+ and other HTC phones via a Vive companion app  —  Even though the Vive Focus won't be available outside of China until later this year, it's already getting a major update which will make it a lot more versatile.
Canalys:
Research: global smart speaker shipments grew to 9M units in Q1 2018, up 210% YoY; Google sold 3.2M Home and Mini devices, overtaking 2.5M Amazon Echos shipped  —  Palo Alto, Shanghai, Singapore and Reading (UK) - Wednesday, May 23 2018 Smart speakers continue to be the world's fastest-growing …
Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
Sources: Pinterest revenues were up 58% in 2017 to $473M; company now has almost 250M monthly active users  —  - Online image service has almost 250 million monthly users  — Predictable revenue growth is an important step before IPO  —  Pinterest Inc. sales jumped 58 percent …
Tweets: @shiraovide and @rrhoover
Jason Del Rey / Recode:
Amazon says the Echo that recorded a private discussion interpreted background conversation as action confirmation, leading to recording and sending to contact  —  A couple says their device secretly recorded a private conversation of theirs and sent it to an acquaintance.
Gary Horcher / KIRO:

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Earlier Picks

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Janko Roettgers / Variety: