Techmeme
July 17, 2018, 9:10 PM

Top News

Kim Zetter / Motherboard:
Election Systems and Software contradicts earlier statements, admits to Sen. Wyden some voting systems sold to states from 2000-2006 had remote access feature  —  Remote-access software and modems on election equipment ‘is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.’
Joe Fedewa / XDA Developers:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
A reporter posing as a Dublin Facebook moderator found that pages from far-right groups face looser content standards; Facebook vows to improve its training  —  A new documentary details how third-party Facebook moderators ignore the company's rules  —  An investigative journalist …
David Shepardson / Reuters:
Richard Nieva / CNET:
Google says Nest CEO to exit, sources say after employee revolt; sources: Alphabet tried selling Nest to Amazon; Nest now part of Google's home devices unit  —  Five months after Nest rejoined Google, the search giant told employees Tuesday that Marwan Fawaz will no longer be CEO of Nest …
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / Motherboard:
Inside OGUSERS, a forum to trade social media and gaming handles, often stolen via “SIM hijacking” where phone numbers are stolen via carrier's customer service  —  Meet the hackers who flip seized Instagram handles and cryptocurrency in a shady, buzzing underground market for stolen accounts and usernames.
Wall Street Journal:
Walmart strikes a five-year strategic partnership to use Microsoft's cloud tech, AI, machine learning, and other services, as both firms look to fend off Amazon  —  The shared rivalry with Amazon ‘is absolutely core to this,’ Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says
Jonathan Vanian / Fortune:
Slack acquires Missions, a tool that helps automate routine processes and tasks in Slack without needing to write code  —  Slack is attempting to broaden its appeal to businesses and has bought a small enterprise software startup in Denver to help.  —  The workplace chat app company …
More: VentureBeat, Slack, and TechCrunchThanks:@findmack
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Twitter product lead Kayvon Beykpour says the firm is pausing work on fixing its verification policy to focus on more important areas like election integrity  —  The company will return to the issue over the coming weeks and months  —  Twitter doesn't presently “have the bandwidth” …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Tinder says it will begin testing Bitmoji integration in Canada and Mexico using the recently launched Snap Kit  —  Tinder will begin testing Bitmoji in its app in Canada and Mexico, the company announced today.  The new integration comes courtesy of the recently launched Snap Kit …
Jessica Toonkel / The Information:
Sources: Walmart is considering launching a subscription streaming video service that would undercut Netflix and Amazon Prime Video on price  —  Walmart is considering launching a subscription streaming video service to compete with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, people familiar with the situation told The Information.
Facebook:
Facebook announces a new AI lab in Pittsburgh and hires a number of new researchers for Facebook AI Research in Seattle, London, Menlo Park, and Pittsburgh  —  We created Facebook AI Research over four years ago to focus on advancing the science and technology of AI, and we've always done …
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Andreessen Horowitz names Connie Chan a General Partner, ending the VC firm's no-promotion policy  —  Connie Chan is Andreessen Horowitz's first general partner promoted from within.  —  Andreessen Horowitz has prided itself on breaking some of venture capital's long-time norms in its nine years of operation.
Ryan Smith / AnandTech:
Samsung announces 10nm 8GB LPDDR5 DRAM chip, targets 6.4Gbps data transfer rates and 30% reduced power  —  Samsung has been on a roll lately with memory & storage-related announcements, and that roll is continuing today with a new DRAM-related announcement out of the juggernaut.
Ashlee Vance / Bloomberg:
Profile of Zoox, which has been building an autonomous car from scratch since 2014 and has raised $800M to date, including $500M in July at a valuation of $3.2B  —  The mystery box sits inside an all-white room in an office building in San Francisco.  It's a large, wooden crate with no features …

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Earlier Picks

Sara Fischer / Axios: