Techmeme
October 12, 2018, 2:20 AM

Top News

Washington Post:
Facebook removes 800+ US-based accounts and pages, some with 100K+ followers, that were spamming people with political messages for profit  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook said on Thursday it purged more than 800 U.S. publishers and accounts for flooding users with politically-oriented spam …
Laura Hautala / CNET:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook rolls out Facebook 3D photos that use AI to add make-believe depth to iPhone portrait mode shots  —  What if you could peek behind what's in your photos, like you're moving your head to see what's inside a window?  That's the futuristic promise of Facebook 3D photos.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft rolls out October 2018 update for Xbox One with new avatars, Dolby Vision support for Netflix, and the ability to control Xbox with Alexa or Cortana  —  Microsoft is releasing a significant dashboard update for the Xbox One today.  The new October 2018 update for Xbox brings Microsoft's …
Dan Primack / Axios:
In a letter to the SEC, Uber asks for a change of rules to allow it to compensate drivers with company stock  —  Uber on Thursday sent a letter to federal securities regulators, asking for rules changes that would let it provide company stock to its drivers, Axios has learned.
Dani Deahl / The Verge:
Trump signs the Music Modernization Act that makes it easier for rights holders to get paid when their music is streamed online  —  President Trump has signed the Music Modernization Act (MMA) into law, officially passing the most sweeping reform to copyright law in decades.
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
Google's Home Hub doesn't run Android Things, the platform Google purposely built for IoT products like smart displays, but uses Google's Cast platform instead  —  Google built a platform for smart displays and then didn't use it in the Home Hub.  —  On Tuesday, Google announced the Google Home Hub …
Bloomberg:
Alipay and Tencent say hackers used stolen Apple IDs to access some customer accounts and steal unknown sums of money; Alipay says Apple hasn't fixed the issue  —  - China's top digital wallet didn't say how much was stolen  — Ant Financial and Tencent are working with Apple on the case
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Video conferencing startup Zoom announces partnerships with Dropbox and Atlassian, a cloud phone system called Zoom Voice coming in 2019, and an app marketplace  —  Videoconferencing solution company Zoom announced a slew of new products and services this week at its Zoomtopia 2018 conference in San Jose, California.
More: ZDNet
Tom Krazit / GeekWire:
Microsoft joins the Open Invention Network and cross-licenses over 60,000 patents for other members  —  After years of waging patent war on Google's Linux-based Android mobile operating system, Microsoft agreed Wednesday to join the Open Invention Network and cross-license its more than 60,000 patents to participating members.
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Global PC shipments in Q3 were flat, up 0.1% YoY according to Gartner, as IDC estimates 0.9% decline; Gartner says Microsoft broke into top 5 PC vendors in US  —  The PC market is seeing some very interesting moves this year.  In Q2 2018, global shipments were up for the first time in six years …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Tencent Music is postponing its IPO until at least November because of the selloff in global markets  —  Music streamer and underwriters worried global market selloff would hurt pricing  —  Tencent Music Entertainment Group is postponing its initial public offering until …
More: CNBC and TechNode
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Sensor Tower: Netflix app revenue was up ~90% YoY to ~$243.7M in Q3 across both App Store and Google Play, the highest grossing non-game mobile app worldwide  —  App spending across Apple App Store and Google Play increased 23% in third quarter, per Sensor Tower
Tom Krazit / GeekWire:
Cloud data warehouse vendor Snowflake Computing raises $450M led by Sequoia Capital at a $3.5B valuation, bringing its total raised to $923M  —  In January, after raising $263 million, Snowflake Computing CEO Bob Muglia indicated that the next time his fast-growing cloud data warehousing company tapped …

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More News

New York Times:
Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:
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Earlier Picks

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Ian Cutress / AnandTech:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
CNBC:
Heather Long / Washington Post:
Alyssa Hertig / CoinDesk:
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat: