Techmeme
January 1, 2019, 7:15 PM

Top News

Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
How deepfakes, AI-generated videos that graft a person's face onto another's body, have been weaponized to harass and humiliate their subjects, mostly women  —  “Deepfake” creators are making disturbingly realistic, computer-generated videos with photos taken from the Web, and ordinary women are suffering the damage.
Jennifer Ouellette / Ars Technica:
Researchers used a series of auctions to find that, on average, it would take more than $1,000 to entice a Facebook user to deactivate their account for a year  —  Some users required more than $1,000 to deactivate their account for one year. … A series of auctions revealed …
Natasha Singer / New York Times:
Experts say Facebook's opaque approach toward flagging possible suicide threats to police around the world may not be accurate, effective, or safe  —  A police officer on the late shift in an Ohio town recently received an unusual call from Facebook.  —  Earlier that day …
Selim Chtayti / Agence France-Presse:
Parents are often shocked by inappropriate videos on TikTok, a major hit with teens that Sensor Tower says was the most downloaded app on iOS in H1 2018  —  TikTok's video-sharing app was the most downloaded on Apple's App Store in the first half of 2018, beating out Facebook, Instgram and Snapchat
Zen Soo / South China Morning Post:
A look at a comprehensive Chinese e-commerce law, which was passed in August to address the sale of counterfeit and copycat merchandise, that is now in effect  —  - E-commerce platform operators are jointly liable with merchants for selling counterfeit and copycat merchandise on their websites
Brad Sams / Petri:
In 2018, Microsoft said it would start giving app developers an 85%-95% cut for non-game apps, up from 70%, but the new pricing hasn't been implemented yet  —  Back in the spring of 2018, Microsoft published a blog post saying that the company would soon be more generous with its revenue share in the Microsoft store.
Wall Street Journal:
Tech trends for 2019: foldable phones, 5G, cashierless retail, privacy legislation, autonomous delivery wagons, IoT edge computing, and more  —  From delivery wagons and foldable phones to privacy crackdowns and corporate health tracking, the coming year will make good on some of the tech industry's biggest promises
Rita Liao / TechCrunch:
Didi faces new challenges in 2019 as stricter regulations take effect in China that require drivers have a local residency permit and a commercial car license  —  Over the last few years, millions of Chinese workers managed to earn extra money by being ride-hailing drivers.
Frank Chaparro / The Block:
Intercontinental Exchange subsidiary Bakkt raises $182.5M to build its cryptocurrency exchange; sources: regulatory hurdles delay its plans for bitcoin futures  —  Bakkt, the cryptocurrency venture by Intercontinental Exchange, has scored $182.5 million to build out its platform aimed …

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Earlier Picks

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New York Times:
Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times: