Techmeme
August 16, 2018, 5:20 PM

Top News

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Twitter says it's ending legacy API support, used by third-party apps like Tweetbot, due to “technical and business constraints”  —  It's hard to be a fan of Twitter right now.  The company is sticking up for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, when nearly all other platforms …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
New York Times:
Sources: about 1,000 Google employees have signed a letter demanding more transparency following reports of Google developing a censored search engine for China  —  Hundreds of Google employees, upset at the company's decision to secretly build a censored version of its search engine for China …
Erin Pearson / The Age:
Unnamed Melbourne-based 16-year-old pleads guilty to repeatedly breaching Apple's systems and downloading 90GB of sensitive files  —  A Melbourne private schoolboy who repeatedly broke into Apple's secure computer systems is facing criminal charges after the technology giant called in the FBI.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Amazon is in talks to acquire Landmark Theatres, the indie-focused chain that operates 50+ theaters in the US, backed by Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner  —  - Move would mark latest incursion into brick-and-mortar world  — The indie-focused chain operates more than 50 theaters
Zach Dorfman / Foreign Policy:
Current and former US officials say CIA's communication system used for sources in China was compromised, leading to China executing ~30 US spies from 2010-2012  —  The number of informants executed in the debacle is higher than initially thought.  —  It was considered one of the CIA's worst failures …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google announces Audio Streaming for Hearing Aids, an open spec that lets hearing aid makers add direct audio streaming to Android from assistive devices  —  Today's hearing aids increasingly overlap and share the same functionality as Bluetooth headphones.
Steve Dent / Engadget:
Sony says it has sold 3M PlayStation VR headsets since their fall 2016 launch, up from 2M at the end of 2017  —  Sony announced that it has sold 3 million PlayStation VR (PSVR) headsets as of the end of July, showing that its popularity has declined little since the fall 2016 launch.
Dustin Volz / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: President Trump has reversed classified Obama-era rules governing use of cyberweapons in an effort to loosen restrictions on such operations  —  It isn't clear what rules the president is adopting to replace the existing ones  —  President Trump has reversed an Obama-era memorandum governing …
Bloomberg:
Tencent's recent profit drop and China's freeze on game approvals shows the downsides of government patronage  —  - ‘If it can happen to Tencent, it can happen to anyone.’  — Internet giant has lost more than $170 billion in market cap  —  China long celebrated Tencent Holdings Ltd. as a national champion.
John Herrman / New York Times:
Unlike smaller web forums, centrally run social media platforms like Twitter are just too big to nurture healthy online communities  —  In late July, President Trump aimed his Twitter account at the platform itself: “Twitter ‘SHADOW BANNING’ prominent Republicans,” he wrote.  “Not good.”
Wolfie Zhao / CoinDesk:
SFOX, a crypto trading platform for institutional investors and others, raises $22.7M Series A led by Tribe Capital and Social Capital  —  A cryptocurrency dealer setting out to provide trading services for institutional investors has closed a Series A funding round of $22.7 million.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Credit Karma acquires mortgage platform Approved for an undisclosed sum, says it's a natural next step to get into the mortgage business  —  Credit Karma, the service best known for providing free credit score monitoring and other financial advice (mostly to millennials), is getting into the mortgage business.
Issie Lapowsky / Wired:
A look at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensics Research Lab and its partnership with Facebook as it works to spot the origins of online disinformation  —  IN LATE JULY, a group of high-ranking Facebook executives organized an emergency conference call with reporters across the country.
Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch:

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