Techmeme
December 21, 2018, 7:50 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.
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 …
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 …
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.
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.
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 …
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 …
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.
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
Ime Archibong / Facebook:

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