Techmeme
October 16, 2018, 5:50 PM

Top News

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
In response to a July ruling by the EU, Google will start charging European Android device makers a licensing fee for the Play Store and other Google apps  —  Android will still be “free and open source”  —  Google is changing the way it licenses its suite of Android apps in Europe …
Alex Heath / Cheddar:
Source: Facebook is building a hybrid video chat/TV set-top box, internally called Ripley, which it plans to announce in Spring 2019  —  Facebook is developing hardware for the TV, Cheddar has learned.  —  The world's largest social network is building a camera-equipped device that sits atop …
Kurt Wagner / Recode:
After saying last week no data collected through Portal would be used to target users with ads on Facebook, it now says the data can be used to target ads  —  Who you call and what apps you use could determine what ads you see.  —  Facebook announced Portal last week, its take on the in-home …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Uber could be valued at $120B in an IPO as soon as early 2019, nearly double its valuation two months ago, according to proposals from banks  —  Eye-popping offering, which could take place early next year, is nearly double the ride-hailing company's valuation in a fundraising round two months ago
Karl Bode / Techdirt:
Stanford study: of the 800,000+ unique comments submitted to the FCC concerning repeal of net neutrality, 99.7% of them opposed what the FCC did  —  A new study has once again confirmed that the vast, vast majority of the public opposed the FCC's ham-fisted repeal of net neutrality.
Nicholas Confessore / New York Times:
Nitasha Tiku / Wired:
Google CEO Sundar Pichai publicly discusses censored Chinese search engine for the first time, says internal tests have been very promising  —  GOOGLE'S INTERNAL TESTS developing a censored search engine in China have been very promising, CEO Sundar Pichai said on stage on Monday as part of the WIRED 25 Summit.
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Lyft launches All-Access Pass subscription plan for $299 per month for 30 rides costing up to $15 each, for single-passenger trips and carpooling rides  —  Netflix, but for rides  —  Lyft's monthly subscription experiment is going national.  The ride-hailing company has been tinkering …
Wall Street Journal:
As the scandal of Khashoggi's disappearance grows, Silicon Valley is mostly quiet on its connections to Saudi Arabia, the largest funding source for US startups  —  The kingdom is now the largest single investor for U.S. startups, with stakes in Uber, WeWork and Magic Leap
Vlad Savov / The Verge:
Huawei unveils Mate 20 Pro with 6.4-inch OLED display, in-display fingerprint sensor, two-way wireless charging, three rear cameras, and 4,200mAh battery  —  Everything you could want from a phone, and then some  —  Arriving fashionably late to the 2018 contest for super flagship phones …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
A look at how some top utility apps on the App Store are making millions of dollars by using dark patterns, tricking users into signing up for subscriptions  —  Subscriptions have turned into a booming business for app developers, accounting for $10.6 billion in consumer spend on the App Store in 2017 …
Wall Street Journal:
Apple apologizes for the hacking of some Apple IDs in China in phishing scams, says the victims hadn't enabled two-factor authentication  —  Apple apologized over the hacking of some Chinese accounts in phishing scams, almost a week after it emerged that stolen Apple IDs had been used to swipe customer funds.
Taylor Lorenz / The Atlantic:
Users say harassment is rampant on Instagram, and some employees say efforts to stem it are not funded well or prioritized  —  When Brandon Farbstein first joined Instagram in 2014, he was 14 and optimistic.  Farbstein was born with a rare form of dwarfism, and he wanted to use …
Brad Chacos / PCWorld:
Jason Del Rey / Recode:
Instacart raises $600M at a $7.6B valuation led by hedge fund D1 Capital Partners  —  The startup has a fresh $600 million in funding to boot.  —  As Amazon has ramped up its Whole Foods grocery delivery service to 48 cities across the U.S., a common narrative has followed …
Roberto Baldwin / Engadget:
Amazon unveils waterproof Kindle Paperwhite with higher 300ppi resolution, starting at $129, available for preorder now, shipping November 7  —  Sometimes you just want to read a book.  Or maybe all the books.  That's the promise of the Kindle line.  Access to thousands of books …
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Irish Data Protection Commission says about 3M Europeans were affected by Facebook's security breach, announced in Sept., where personal info was accessed  —  - A September Facebook security breach affected about 3 million European users, according to a spokesperson from the Irish Data Protection Commission.
More: CNETThanks:@sal19
Christine Wang / CNBC:
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has died at age 65 from complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma  —  Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen has died from complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Vulcan Inc. said Monday on behalf of his family.  Allen passed away Monday afternoon in Seattle at 65 years old, Vulcan said.

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