Techmeme: HSBC says it processed over 3M FX transactions worth ~$250B using blockchain tech in 2018 and plans to make its FX Everywhere platform commercially available (Eva Szalay/Financial Times)

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January 15, 2019, 7:15 AM

Top News

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:

Sources: Apple replaced 11M iPhone batteries under the $29 replacement program in 2018, up from an average of 1-2M — Jean-Louis Gassée, on Apple's earnings warning: … I'm pretty sure Gassée's back-of-the-envelope estimate of the number of batteries replaced was way too low.

More: Engadget, 9to5Mac, The Verge, Monday Note, AppleInsider, MacRumors, Softpedia News, and iPhone Hacks

Shara Tibken / CNET:

Apple COO Jeff Williams testifies that Qualcomm refused to sell chips for newest iPhones amid legal battle, says $7.50/iPhone fee for Qualcomm patents too high — Apple wanted to use Qualcomm's 4G LTE processors in its newest iPhones, but the chipmaker wouldn't sell to it, Apple's operating chief testified Monday.

More: 9to5Mac, Inquirer, The Next Web, PCMag, Bloomberg, TechSpot, BGR, Neowin, The Register, VentureBeat, Patently Apple, and The Nokia Blog

Tweets: @sharatibken, @sharatibken, @sharatibken, @sharatibken, @patrickmoorhead, @sharatibken, @durvidimel, and @sharatibken

Eleanor Cummins / Popular Science:

YouTube starts rolling out a new feature on iOS that will let viewers swipe right or left to navigate between videos, coming to Android devices later this year — The design team tells us how they made swipe happen. — Tapping is so last year. That's why YouTube began rolling …

More: TechCrunch, Thurrott, Engadget, 9to5Google, SlashGear, Neowin, and Digital Trends

Tweets: @susanwojcicki and @youtubeinsider

CNBC:

NBCUniversal says it will launch an ad-supported streaming service in Q1 2020 that is free for pay-TV subscribers; source: non-subscribers could pay ~$12/month — - NBC's streaming service will be a free, ad-supported product to anyone that subscribes to a pay-TV service.

More: Hollywood Reporter, NBCUniversal, The Verge, Mashable, TechCrunch, BGR, MacRumors, FutureSin, SlashGear, Engadget, 9to5Mac, iPhone Hacks, Bloomberg, and Tubefilter

Tweets: @sherman4949, @sherman4949, @pkafka, @scottporch, @modestproposal1, @sherman4949, @cnbc, @pkafka, @rakeshlobster, @rakeshlobster, and @morganlbrennan

See also Mediagazer

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:

Researcher discloses several flaws that made Bluehost, DreamHost, Hostgator, OVH, and iPage vulnerable to user account hacks; all except OVH say bugs now fixed — A security researcher has found, reported, and now disclosed a dozen bugs that made it easy to steal sensitive information …

More: Website Planet, [H]ardOCP, Threatpost, and Born's Tech and Windows World. Tweets: @paulosyibelo

Ben Thompson / Stratechery:

Amazon's recently-announced DocumentDB AWS offering highlights the economic challenges facing companies like MongoDB Inc. that focus on an open source project — In 1999, music industry revenue in the United States peaked at $14.6 billion (all numbers are from the RIAA).

More: Channel Futures. Tweets: @dotben

Eva Szalay / Financial Times:

HSBC says it processed over 3M FX transactions worth ~$250B using blockchain tech in 2018 and plans to make its FX Everywhere platform commercially available — HSBC is leaning more heavily on blockchain-based tools to handle the fiddly processes behind foreign-exchange trades …

More: CoinDesk, PYMNTS.com, CoinSpeaker, Reuters, Cointelegraph.com News, The Block, and The Next Web

Thomas Brewster / Forbes:

District court judge rules that authorities don't have the right, even with a warrant, to force suspects to unlock devices via biometrics, similar to passwords — A California judge has ruled that American cops can't force people to unlock a mobile phone with their face or finger.

More: ZDNet, Gizmodo, 9to5Mac, Geek.com, The Hacker News, The Next Web, MacRumors, Cult of Mac, The Register, Ars Technica, BREAKER, and The Loop

Tweets: @x0rz, @iblametom, @ferrasvinh, @sbingner, and @cfarivar

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:

Apple's FoundationDB says it is open sourcing FoundationDB Record Layer, which powers CloudKit and offers schema management, indexing, and query capabilities — Apple originally acquired FoundationDB in 2015, and last April it announced that it was making the cloud database open source.

More: FoundationDB, AppleInsider, FoundationDB, and MacRumors

Tweets: @btaylor and @wawilsoniv

Katrina Brooker / Fast Company:

A behind-the-scenes look at Masayoshi Son's investment strategy, which is driven by the belief that computers will run the planet more intelligently than humans — Billionaire Masayoshi Son-not Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg-has the most audacious vision for an AI-powered utopia where machines control how we live.

More: One Degree. Tweets: @fastcompany, @garrytan, @davidlidsky, @cathyreisenwitz, and @polina_marinova

David Shepardson / Reuters:

Trump administration proposes rules to remove waiver requirements for operating drones at night and over populated areas — (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Monday proposed rules that would allow drones to operate over populated areas and end a requirement for special permits for night use …

More: faa.gov, US Department …, SiliconANGLE, Digital Trends, Engadget, SlashGear, Gizmodo, Bloomberg, CNET, The Hill, and Notes from Silicon Valley

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

Google says it is rolling out RCS messaging support on the Google Fi network available on the Pixel phones, the Moto G6, LG V35, LG G7, and Android One Moto X — Alongside faster international LTE data — Today, Google is announcing that it's rolling out RCS Chat on the Google Fi network.

More: The Keyword, Pocket-lint, Digital Trends, SlashGear, XDA Developers, Neowin, Thurrott, 9to5Google, Android Beat, CNET, Android Police, Engadget, Android Authority, Droid Life, and Android Central

Tweets: @backlon and @kifleswing

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From Mediagazer

Ethan Gach / Kotaku:

Valnet agrees to a $2M settlement to end a 2023 suit accusing it of misclassifying some workers as contractors rather than full-time employees to deny them pay

Denise Petski / Deadline:

Amazon Prime Video sets November 20 for the premiere of “Melania, The Series”, the two-episode follow-up to Brett Ratner's “Melania” documentary

The Athletic:

Sources: SNY cancels Sportsnite and Baseball Night in New York and lays off much of its editorial staff; it keeps pregame and postgame shows for Mets and Jets

More News

Campbell Brown / Facebook Media:

Facebook says it will invest $300M over the next three years to support local news in the US, and expand the Local News Subscriptions Accelerator globally

More: Axios, TechCrunch, Recode, USA Today, AdExchanger, and Adweek

Earlier Picks

Mark Armstrong / The WordPress.com Blog:

WordPress.com launches Newspack by WordPress.com, a publishing platform aimed at small- and medium-sized news outlets and backed by Google, ConsenSys, others

More: The Keyword, PR Newswire, The Block, Matt Mullenweg, Marketing Land, TechCrunch, Nieman Lab, 9to5Google, and VentureBeat

Tweets: @wordpressdotcom, @badams, @mattmcgee, @martinsfp, @knightfdn, @raju, and @fundjournalism