Techmeme
December 13, 2018, 5:35 AM

Top News

J. David Goodman / New York Times:
How Amazon is trying to quell opposition to its new NYC offices by hiring well-connected lobbyists and taking to the streets to hear residents' concerns  —  Amazon is trying to quell rising opposition to its plan for offices in New York, hiring well-connected lobbyists to make its case …
Ina Fried / Axios:
Apple announces a $1B Austin campus initially for 5,000 workers, new offices in Seattle, San Diego, and Culver City, plus expansion in several other US cities  —  Apple plans to build a new $1 billion campus in Austin, Texas, adding thousands of jobs, while also setting up new large offices in Seattle …
Frank Chaparro / The Block:
Sources: stablecoin project Basis, backed by Bain Capital, GV, and a16z, is closing and returning most of the $133M capital raised, due to regulatory issues  —  One large Basis investor said “this is an extraordinarily talented team with an extremely ambitious vision tackling a very difficult problem.
Holly Brockwell / Gizmodo UK:
Valentina Palladino / Ars Technica:
LG unveils two Gram laptops ahead of CES: 17" 2.9lb clamshell with 8th gen Intel CPU and claimed 19.5 hour battery for $1,699+, and a 14" 2-in-1 with price TBA  —  LG will show off all new Gram laptops at CES in January.  —  We're just a few weeks away from 2019's Consumer Electronics Show …
Kyle Orland / Ars Technica:
Epic Games, which makes Fortnite, unveils a free SDK, rolling out in 2019, to help developers build cross-platform games that include login and social elements  —  Online services SDK will roll out slowly through 2019.  —  Part of the massive success of Fortnite has been the ability …
Gillian Brockell / Washington Post:
Tech companies should automatically turn off irrelevant ads based on info users share, such as ads for baby gear when a pregnant person has a stillborn child  —  Dear Tech Companies:  —  I know you knew I was pregnant.  It's my fault, I just couldn't resist those Instagram hashtags — #30weekspregnant, #babybump.
Peter Bright / Ars Technica:
Intel unveils its next CPU architecture, Sunny Cove, built to execute more instructions in parallel with lower latency, better cryptography support, and more  —  Finally, a move away from just bundling more cores together.  —  In 2019, Intel will release Core and Xeon chips built around a new architecture …
Brian Barrett / Wired:
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
SEC settles with the former CEO and COO of AriseBank, which it sued in January for alleged fraud and issuing unregistered securities during an ICO, for $2.7M+  —  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has settled charges with two former executives of AriseBank, which was hit with a token sale fraud lawsuit in early 2018.
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
McAfee: a coordinated cyber espionage campaign focused on defense organizations sent malware via targeted phishing messages to at least 87 firms in 24 countries  —  - The infiltration campaign — called “Operation Sharpshooter” — targeted defense and government organizations, McAfee says.
Corbin Davenport / Android Police:
Amazon starts selling the 3rd-gen Chromecast as well as the older Chromecast Ultra, nearly a year after it promised to sell Chromecast devices again  —  Amazon pulled the Chromecast from its online store in 2015, after it instated a new rule that only streaming devices that supported Prime Video could be sold.
Gerry Smith / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple plans to relaunch Texture as a paid news subscription service, built into the Apple News app, as soon as spring 2019, but publishers remain wary  —  - Texture is set to evolve into Apple News subscription feature  — Media executives remain wary of Apple's latest media foray
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
How making products easier to use can steer users toward unhealthy behaviors, like viewing overly extreme content that autoplays, or lead to security breaches  —  Seven years ago, a younger and more carefree Mark Zuckerberg went onstage at Facebook's annual developer conference and announced …
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More News

Colin Lecher / The Verge:
Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:

Earlier Picks

Eduard Kovacs / SecurityWeek:
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