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December 21, 2018, 7:50 AM
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memeorandum
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| 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
More:
The Block, Engadget, The Next Web, IT PRO, SiliconANGLE, Mashable, NewsBTC, CoinSpeaker, Bitcoinist.com, CoinDesk, Business Insider, Fossbytes, SludgeFeed, 9to5Mac, Gizmodo, CoinGeek, and CryptoGlobe
Tweets: @cz_binance, @mbtcpizpie, @crypto_bobby, @sassal0x, and @brianmcc
| 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.
More:
Qualcomm, Reuters, 9to5Mac, FOSS Patents, AppleInsider, Patent Progress, Intel Newsroom, MacRumors, Thurrott, Financial Times, Softpedia News, SiliconANGLE, Patently Apple, iPhone Hacks, MSPoweruser, CNET, SlashGear, Firstpost, The Register, Android Authority, Forbes, The Mac Observer, TechSpot, Neowin, Gizchina, BuzzFeed News, MacRumors, The Verge, Xconomy, InvestorPlace, Fortune, iDownloadBlog.com, Engadget, iPhone in Canada Blog, BGR, iMore, Cult of Mac, and The Apple Post
Tweets: @danielnewmanuv, @natisho, and @benwood
| 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 …
More:
Apple, SiliconANGLE, MacStories, iMore, CNBC, and iPhone Hacks
Tweets: @stevekovach, @gartenberg, @iryantldr, and @reneritchie
| Loup Ventures: |
Voice assistant test involving 800 commands shows Google Assistant answered 88% correctly, Siri got 75% right, Alexa got 73%, and Cortana got 63% — We recently tested four smart speakers by asking Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, and Cortana 800 questions each.| 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 …
More:
Politico, The Montgomery Advertiser, Fox News, al.com, WSFA-TV, The Hill, RT, Washington Post, Forbes, The Daily Caller, and Gizmodo
| 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.
More:
TechCrunch, Motherboard, IT PRO, Silicon Republic, SiliconANGLE, Mashable, The Register, BBC, VentureBeat, Neowin, Business Insider, The Hill, and 9to5Mac
Tweets: @a_h_a, @aaomidi, @alexstamos, @aaomidi, @ehsanakhgari, @maasalan, @josephfcox, @brokep, @smarimc, and @lifewinning
| 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.
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U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, Financial Times, CNET, TechCrunch, GOV.UK, Dark Reading, SiliconANGLE, Axios, BBC, SecurityWeek, SupChina, Federal Computer Week, The Hacker News, ZDNet, The Daily Caller, BuzzFeed News, PYMNTS.com, The Guardian, IT Management, Security Boulevard, The Diplomat, Threatpost, TechSpot, Telegraph, Bloomberg, and Associated Press
Tweets: @ridt, @foreignoffice, @x0rz, @ridt, @ebkania, @marisepayne, @spoxdhs, @ncsc, @mikepillsbury, @ridt, @ambjohnbolton, @david_s_dowling, @joshuawongcf, @ridt, @gregghoush, @eamonjavers, and @ericgeller
| 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.
More:
The Guardian, The Next Web, mediacentre.gatwickairport.com, TechCrunch, Associated Press, Vox, SiliconANGLE, Axios, BBC, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, EE Times, DroneDJ, CNET, Sky News, BGR, The Atlantic, Inquirer, Notes from Silicon Valley, Hackaday, BBC, The Verge, BBC, Naked Security, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Engadget, SlashGear, and TechCrunch
Tweets: @skynewsbreak, @gatwick_airport, @alexhern, @alexhern, @tomwarren, @nycjim, @bbcnews, @wroetoshaw, @jonsnowc4, @los_fisher, @bbcnews, @jonsnowc4, and @skynews
| 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 …
More:
archive.li and Gizmodo
Tweets: @zackwhittaker, @tayhatmaker, @imeluny, @dangillmor, @martinsfp, @alevskey, @caseynewton, @carnage4life, and @tayhatmaker
| Josh Constine / TechCrunch: |
NGO report finds WhatsApp groups spreading child pornography; WhatsApp says it recently banned 130K accounts for violating policies against child exploitation — Facebook fails to provide enough moderators — WhatsApp chat groups are being used to spread illegal child pornography, cloaked by the app's end-to-end encryption.
More:
Financial Times, CNET, Screen Savers …, and Business Insider
Tweets: @malcolmmoore and @joshconstine
| Pranav Dixit / BuzzFeed News: |
India authorizes ten government agencies, including intelligence and law enforcement, to monitor, intercept, and decrypt data on all computers in the country — India's Ministry of Home Affairs, a federal government authority that controls the country's internal security …
More:
NDTV Gadgets 360, Times of India, Livemint, The Wire, The Hindu, News18, The Indian Express, MediaNama, Firstpost, and Firstpost
Tweets: @rahulgandhi, @ani, @sitaramyechury, @internetfreedom, @ghair_kanooni, @ahmedpatel, and @omarabdullah
| Ryan Browne / CNBC: |
Coinbase launches in Lithuania, Iceland, Andorra, Gibraltar, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man amid plans for a more aggressive international push in 2019 — - Coinbase has expanded its product to Lithuania, Iceland, Andorra, Gibraltar, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.| Charlie Hall / Polygon: |
Microsoft says Xbox All Access, its subscription program to buy an Xbox, Xbox Game Pass, and Xbox Live, will end on Dec. 31, return in a revised format in 2019 — Microsoft promises program will be ‘expanding’ soon — This summer, Microsoft unveiled a novel new subscription program called Xbox All Access.| Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
Delivery Hero sells its operations in its home market Germany, including the Lieferheld, Pizza.de and foodora brands, to Dutch rival Takeaway.com for €930M — One more big consolidation play is underway in the highly competitive European food delivery business, amid more pressure from newer players like Uber Eats and Deliveroo.
More:
Tech.eu and EU-Startups
| 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.
More:
TechCrunch, eqtventures, MarketWatch, Bloomberg, Zynga Inc., Pocket Gamer.biz, Tech.eu, and Reuters
Tweets: @jowens510, @anvu, and @business
| 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
| Roland Li / San Francisco Chronicle: |
Square says it has leased all of the office space in Oakland's Uptown Station, which Uber sold to developer CIM Group in 2017, with room for up to 2,000 staff — Payments processor Square signed an office lease Thursday for Oakland's Uptown Station in one of the city's biggest real estate deals ever.
Tweets: @rolandlisf, @sfchronicle, and @kimmaicutler
| Kate Clark / TechCrunch: |
Earnin, which develops a money management platform for workers, raises $125M Series C from DST Global, a16z, and others and says it has 1M+ downloads — Before Ram Palaniappan founded Earnin, he developed a system for employees at a payments company called UniRush, where he spent eight years as president.
More:
Business Wire, PaymentsSource, PYMNTS.com, and FinSMEs
| Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed News: |
Report: some apps using Facebook's SDK, like Grindr and Bible+, send user info to Facebook, including location, where users click, and how long the app is used — Facebook provided developers with tools to build Facebook-compatible apps like Tinder, Grindr and Pregnancy+.
More:
Wired, CNBC, Adweek, TidBITS, Financial Times, and Silicon Valley Business …
| Ime Archibong / Facebook: |
More:
Slate, Washington Post, The Guardian, InvestorPlace, CSO, Silicon Valley Business …, Hmm Daily, iMore, Business Insider, AdExchanger, iPhone in Canada Blog, and BGR
Tweets: @netflix, @matthewstoller, @bigalittlea, @benadida, @facebook, @matthewstoller, @alvarombedoya, and @vickerysec
Sponsor Posts
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Sources:
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Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
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