Techmeme
August 21, 2018, 9:55 PM

Top News

Facebook:
Facebook removes 652 Pages, groups, and accounts on Facebook and Instagram after a FireEye tip led it to investigate inauthentic behavior out of Iran and Russia  —  Today we removed multiple Pages, groups and accounts for coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram.
New York Times:
Research that looked at every anti-refugee attack in Germany over two years shows more attacks on refugees happened where Facebook use was higher than average  —  ALTENA, Germany — When you ask locals why Dirk Denkhaus, a young firefighter trainee who had been considered neither dangerous nor political …
Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:
Facebook assigns a trustworthiness score to each of its users, tracking things like whether an article a user flags as false turns out, after review, to be true  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook has begun to assign its users a reputation score, predicting their trustworthiness on a scale from zero to one.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Slack raises $427M Series H led by Dragoneer Investment Group and General Atlantic at a valuation of over $7.1B  —  Slack, the workplace communications platform, has taken off like a rocket since launching in 2013 and now has more than 8 million daily active users and 70,000 teams paying to use it.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Netflix is testing bypassing iTunes payment method in 33 countries, redirecting users to the mobile web version to log payment details directly with Netflix  —  Netflix is one of the highest-grossing apps on the iOS App Store, but it looks like the video streaming giant is contemplating …
Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed News:
Facebook says it plans to remove over 5,000 ad targeting options by this fall in an effort to prevent discriminatory advertising  —  Facebook is planning to remove more than 5,000 ad targeting options in an effort to prevent discriminatory advertising.  —  The bulk of the 5,000 targeting options …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google Fit on iOS and Android is redesigned with “move minutes” and “heart points” to encourage cardiac exercise, new health-tracking rings, and activity goals  —  You'll collect ‘Heart Points’ instead of counting steps  —  Today, Google is rolling out a complete redesign …
New York Times:
Microsoft says hackers linked to the Russian military intelligence agency formerly known as the GRU targeted conservative US think tanks that challenge Moscow  —  BOSTON — The Russian military intelligence unit that sought to influence the 2016 election appears to have a new target …
Shona Ghosh / Business Insider:
Y Combinator says it's accepting all 15,000+ applicants to its Startup School program after a glitch sent acceptance emails to those who had been rejected  —  - Y Combinator emailed tech founders this week saying they had been accepted into Startup School, its free online course for entrepreneurs.
Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
Cloud-based file transfer company WeTransfer acquires FiftyThree, which makes the popular Paper app, including its entire patent portfolio and executive team  —  File-sharing company WeTransfer has acquired the Paper and Paste creative apps from FiftyThree.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
A look at Facebook's voice ambitions: from developing a speech recognition feature for Facebook and Messenger apps called Aloha to patents for a speaker device  —  Code reveals unlaunched speech recognition feature  —  Facebook has been a bit slow to adopt the voice computing revolution.
Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed News:
In an interview, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says Twitter should be built around following topics and interests, thinks an impartial product can exist  —  Twitter's CEO Jack Dorsey doesn't have all the answers.  For one, he's not sure whether you should delete your old tweets.
Patricia Hernandez / The Verge:
Google launches experimental feature for Assistant users in the US that shares stories from Solutions Journalism Network when asked “tell me something good”  —  Good news, literally  —  Trying to keep up with the news might be aspirational, but these days, it can also be depressing.
Jeremy Horwitz / VentureBeat:
HTC announces Vive Wireless Adapter, coming Sept. 24 for $300, allowing wireless usage of Vive and Vive Pro, though the Pro needs a $60 compatibility add-on  —  HTC's long-awaited Vive Wireless Adapter is almost ready to purchase, the company announced today, as the cutting-edge collaboration between …
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
Braavo, a startup that provides financing to mobile app developers and gets paid back with a fixed percentage of future earnings, raises $6M Series A  —  Braavo, a startup that provides financing to mobile app developers, is announcing that it has raised $6 million in Series A funding.

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI that works  —  Tribe builds tech for top AI companies.  Get in touch to learn how our bench of 500+ engineers and researchers can accelerate your roadmap.
Kulkan Security:
Hire Kulkan as your penetration testing partner  —  Kulkan prioritizes deep-dive manual security reviews, dissecting your software and infrastructure to find issues that once remediated can truly reduce security risk.
Zoho:
Environmental impact of remote support: Reducing carbon footprints in IT  —  Information technology is essential for powering core business processes and facilitating communication.
Mastodon:
Donate to Mastodon  —  Mastodon gGmbH, the non-profit behind the open-source software powering the social web, relies entirely on support from users like you.  Donate directly with a credit card or through Patreon.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Magatte Wade, Unlocking Prosperity in Africa (#53)
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 04/18 - Game Emulators On iOS And The Atlas Robot Lives!
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:55 PM ET, August 21, 2018.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks