Techmeme
December 21, 2018, 4:55 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: Facebook is developing a stablecoin for money transfers on WhatsApp, focusing first on the remittances market in India  —  - First focus will be on remittance market in India, people say  — Social network is still working out its blockchain strategy
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Apple says it will stop selling iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 in its 15 retail stores across Germany after Qualcomm was granted an injunction by a Munich court  —  - Last week, a Chinese court ordered an injunction against Apple over an alleged patent violation filed by chipmaker Qualcomm.
New York Times:
Sources: Reid Hoffman funded $100K project that secretly tested disinformation tactics against Roy Moore on Facebook and Twitter during the Alabama Senate race  —  As Russia's online election machinations came to light last year, a group of Democratic tech experts decided to try …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple says AI chief John Giannandrea, who joined from Google in April, has been promoted to its executive team as SVP of Machine Learning and AI Strategy  —  Apple today announced John Giannandrea, who handles machine learning and AI for the company, has been promoted to the Apple's executive team …
CNBC:
DOJ charges two alleged members of China's state sponsored hacking unit APT10 with stealing data from at least 45 US tech companies and government agencies  —  - They are accused of stealing information from at least 45 U.S. tech companies and government agencies.
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
Slack is deactivating accounts it says are linked to Iran to comply with US sanctions without warning the users  —  ‘They are either incompetent at OFAC interpretation or racist’  —  This morning, many Slack users with ties to Iran discovered their accounts had been abruptly deactivated.
BBC:
UK's Gatwick airport reopens after being shut down on Wednesday and Thursday after drones were seen flying over the runway; 120K+ passengers have been affected  —  Tens of thousands of passengers have been disrupted by drones flying over one of the UK's busiest airports.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Blind, an anonymous community chat app used by staff at Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and more, left one database server exposed from Nov. 1 to Dec. 19  —  One of the company's servers was exposed without a password for weeks.  —  Thousands of people trusted Blind, an app-based …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Zynga says it will buy 80% of Helsinki-based Small Giant Games for $560M in a deal expected to close Jan. 1 and will buy remaining 20% over the next three years  —  Zynga has agreed to acquire the Helsinki-based mobile game maker Small Giant Games, the creator of the hit title Empires & Puzzles.
Reuters:
Twitter closes down 11%+ after investor group Citron Research calls it “the Harvey Weinstein of Social Media” following Amnesty International report  —  - Shares of social media company Twitter down 11.3 percent at $29.22; set for its biggest one-day percent fall in nearly five months
More: Bloomberg
Dara Kerr / CNET:
Uber says it will bring its self-driving cars back on the road on Thursday in Pittsburgh, nine months after a fatal crash  —  Uber took its self-driving cars off the road last March, after a fatal accident, the first known pedestrian death caused by a vehicle in full autonomous mode.
Ime Archibong / Facebook:
Facebook confirms Spotify, Netflix, Dropbox, and RBC had read/write/delete access for messaging integrations, says it was experimental and ended three years ago  —  In the past day, we've been accused of disclosing people's private messages to partners without their knowledge.

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Is AI just hype?  —  Find out how top enterprises use Tribe to get real business results.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
All new Zoho Workerly 2024  —  Staffing businesses around the world face a unique set of challenges when it comes to managing their temporary workforce.  With a constantly shifting job market and changing staffing needs …
Comprehensive.io:
Browse salary data from 3,000 startups for free  —  Click for FREE, immediate access to real-time compensation benchmarking data.  Paid version helps HR automate comp reviews and communicate total compensation to employees.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Henry Shukman, Lessons from an Authentic Zen Master
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 03/28 - Claude 3 Opus Surpasses GPT-4 For The First Time
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 4:55 AM ET, December 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

BuzzFeed News:

Earlier Picks

Bijan Stephen / The Verge:
Arno Schuetze / Reuters: