Techmeme
November 30, 2018, 12:45 PM

Top News

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Marriott International says 500M records from the guest reservation database of Starwood Hotels were stolen in a massive data breach  —  Starwood Hotels has confirmed its hotel guest database of about 500 million customers has been stolen in a data breach.  —  The hotel and resorts giant …
Day One: The Amazon Blog:
Apple Music will be available on Amazon Echo devices beginning the week of December 17  —  Apple Music is coming to Echo devices in the coming weeks.  —  Music has always been one of Alexa's most popular features and today we're excited to announce that Apple Music will be available on Echo devices beginning the week of December 17.
New York Times:
Sources say Sandberg asked Facebook staff to research George Soros's finances, though she denied knowledge of hiring Definers, the firm tasked to research Soros  —  Sheryl Sandberg asked Facebook's communications staff to research George Soros's financial interests in the wake …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Instagram is launching a “Close Friends” list on iOS and Android to let users share Stories with a limited group of friends  —  They're Finstagram Stories  —  No one wants to post silly, racy, or vulnerable Stories if they're worried their boss, parents, and distant acquaintances are watching.
Liz Moyer / CNBC:
SEC settles with Floyd Mayweather and DJ Khaled on charges of promoting ICOs without disclosing payments; Mayweather to pay $600K+ in fees, Khaled to pay $150K+  —  Pro boxer Floyd Mayweather and music producer DJ Khaled pumped up initial coin offerings without telling investors …
Gabe Rivera / Techmeme News:
Techmeme now publishing paid and free “Leaderboards” showing the most influential reporters around a specific news topic  —  Today Techmeme has begun publishing Topic Leaderboards, which list the top authors and publications covering 24 topic areas such as cloud computing, autonomous vehicles …
David Bixenspan / Gizmodo:
The Wayback Machine does not challenge takedown requests and its robots.txt policy not only allows crawling to stop but removes a given site's entire history  —  On the internet, there are certain institutions we have come to rely on daily to keep truth from becoming nebulous or elastic.
Davey Alba / BuzzFeed News:
Eight lawmakers send a third letter questioning Rekognition's accuracy, privacy guards, and police use to Jeff Bezos, who has yet to address mounting criticism  —  A group of seven House Democrats sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Thursday demanding details about Amazon Rekognition …
Ryan Gallagher / The Intercept:
Sources detail the measures Google took to keep Dragonfly under wraps, including shutting out some members of the security and privacy teams from key meetings  —  The secrecy surrounding the work was unheard of at Google.  It was not unusual for planned new products to be closely guarded ahead of launch.
James Titcomb / Telegraph:
Local reports say Apple has removed 700+ apps, including apps by Sogou and Pinduoduo, from the Chinese App Store for pushing app updates without Apple's review  —  Apple has removed hundreds of iPhone apps from its App Store in China, in the company's latest crackdown in one of its biggest markets.
Erika Kinetz / Associated Press:
Over 200 car manufactures operating in China, including Tesla, BMW, and Ford, are sending position info and other data to government-backed monitoring centers  —  SHANGHAI (AP) — When Shan Junhua bought his white Tesla Model X, he knew it was a fast, beautiful car.

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More News

The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Nat Levy / GeekWire:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Julia Alexander / The Verge: