Techmeme
January 31, 2019, 4:00 PM

Top News

Facebook:
Facebook says it removed 262 Pages, 356 accounts, three groups, and 162 Instagram accounts tied to Iran for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior  —  Today we removed multiple Pages, groups and accounts that engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram.
CNBC:
Intel promotes Robert Swan from interim to permanent CEO, its seventh in 50 years, following the ouster of Brian Krzanich in June 2018  —  - Analysts and media outlets speculated early on about several possible candidates, including two female executives who had left Intel in the relatively recent past.
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Hackers are distributing Collections #2-5, 845GB of usernames and passwords or 25B records, almost tripling Collection #1, on hacker forums and torrents  —  WHEN HACKERS BREACHED companies like Dropbox and LinkedIn in recent years—stealing 71 and 117 million passwords, respectively …
Casey Newton / The Interface:
Apple shutting down Facebook's internal iOS apps should serve as a reminder of the power Apple holds over the rest of us  —  At around 2:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Facebook sent me an update about the controversial market research program revealed on Tuesday by TechCrunch.
The Verge:
Janko Roettgers / Variety:
Ultraviolet, the cloud movie locker that launched in 2011 with support from major Hollywood studios, is shutting down on July 31  —  Ultraviolet, a cloud movie locker once hailed as Hollywood's best bet to get consumers hooked on digital movies, is shuttering.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
IDC: 375.4M smartphones shipped in Q4 2018, down 4.9% YoY, closing out worst year; Apple shipped estimated 68.4M iPhones, down 11.5% YoY; Samsung was top vendor  —  The smartphone market isn't looking too hot.  In a report published today, research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) …
Nick Summers / Engadget:
Nintendo reports Q3 profit of ~$1.5B, up 36% YoY, on revenue of $5.6B, up 26% YoY, sells 9.41M Switch consoles, but cuts its fiscal year target from 20M to 17M  —  Nintendo sold 9.41 million Switch consoles in the three months leading up to December 31st, 2018, bringing lifetime sales to 32.27 million.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Google says Google+ for consumers will shut down April 2; all content posted by consumer accounts, including Google+ pages, photos, and videos, will be deleted  —  In late 2018, Google announced that it would shut down Google+, its beleaguered social network, for consumers due to “low usage” …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Mark Zuckerberg:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Sources: on-demand storage service Clutter is raising between $200M and $250M in a round led by SoftBank  —  Marie Kondo's rise as a cultural icon shows there's big business to be had in sorting out a mess.  And startups are also hoping to get in on the action.
More: Bloomberg
Athena Jones / CNN:
New York AG, in precedent-setting settlement, finds selling fake followers and likes or using stolen IDs on social media is illegal in its case against Devumi  —  New York (CNN Business)A company that brought in millions of dollars in revenue by creating fake social media posts and comments …
Frank Chaparro / The Block:
Binance now allows users to buy cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin, and XRP with a credit or debit card  —  Binance, the largest spot cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, is now accepting credit and debit cards for crypto payments, the firm announced Thursday.
Sam Byford / The Verge:
Samsung reports Q4 revenue of $53.3B, down 10% YoY, operating profit of $9.7B, down 29% YoY, says earnings primarily affected by falling demand for memory chips  —  Samsung Electronics has turned in an earnings report in line with its guidance, as happens every quarter.

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:
Fast, affordable law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
Zoho Mail MCP: Make your inbox work for you  —  Maya is the head of operations at a 500-person B2B software company.  She's sharp, she's busy, and she starts every morning the same way-with her coffee, laptop, inbox.Not to work.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Anthropic's Mythos is Back, OpenAI Releases GPT 5.6, Apple's Price Increases
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Hard Fork:
'The Daily' and 'The Opinions': How A.I. Is Changing Loneliness and Taste
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Writer's May Habib: Building AI Tools For Corporate 'Normal People' The Labs Leave Behind
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
A Nick, Dick, and Paul Buffet!
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Great Chat:
How much data do we actually want about our bodies?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:00 PM ET, January 31, 2019.

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

Christine Kim / CoinDesk:

Earlier Picks

Bloomberg: