Techmeme
February 7, 2019, 3:15 AM

Top News

Peter Kafka / Recode:
Spotify buys podcast producer Gimlet Media, sources say for ~$230M, and Anchor, a startup which makes it easier for users to record and distribute podcasts  —  Daniel Ek says he wants to spend up to $500 million on acquisitions this year.  —  Spotify is a streaming music company that wants to become a podcast company, too.
Stuart Dredge / Music Ally:
Joseph Cox / Motherboard:
Leaked documents show around 250 bounty hunters and related businesses had access to AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint customer location data for at least five years  —  In January, Motherboard revealed that AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint were selling their customers' real-time location data …
Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch:
Following a lawsuit, Instacart CEO apologizes for changes that meant some tips were used to boost base pay, says affected workers will get retroactive pay  —  On the heels of a recently-filed class action lawsuit over wages and tips, as well as drivers and shoppers speaking …
Kara Swisher / Recode:
Facebook's top global communications executive, Caryn Marooney, is leaving after eight years; Debbie Frost, Facebook's longest-serving PR exec, is also leaving  —  After a bruising year for the social media giant, longtime communications head Caryn Marooney is helping search for her replacement.
Austin Carr / Bloomberg:
Interviews with 49 people illuminate Wisconsin's disastrous deal with Foxconn, championed by Trump, that saw $4.5B in promised incentives with little return  —  “This is the Eighth Wonder of the World.”  —  So declared President Donald Trump onstage last June at a press event at Foxconn's …
Rani Molla / Recode:
Research: US riders who used both Uber and Lyft in Q4 2018 accounted for ~1/3 of the companies' ride-sharing revenue; 15% of revenue was from Lyft-only riders  —  Customers are shopping between the two ride-hail leaders and taking the car with the better price.  —  Ride-sharing customers are becoming less loyal.
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
A security researcher who has shared iOS flaws before demos a macOS Keychain exploit, won't share details with Apple because of the lack of a macOS bug bounty  —  Security researcher Linuz Henze has shared a video demonstration of what is claimed to be a macOS Mojave exploit to access passwords stored in the Keychain.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Report: some iPhone apps use Glassbox's analytics SDK to record in-app user interactions without permission, and recordings sometimes don't mask sensitive data  —  And there's no way a user would know  —  Many major companies, like Air Canada, Hollister and Expedia, are recording every tap and swipe you make on their iPhone apps.
Nico Grant / Bloomberg:
Inside Oracle's ad software arm Data Cloud, built with ~$3B of acquisitions since 2014, that has reported disappointing financials and seen layoffs  —  Oracle Corp. has spent five years and billions of dollars getting really good at following people around the internet.
Ryan Felton / Consumer Reports:
Survey of 110 hospitals and five agencies from 47 US cities: 1,500+ e-scooter-related injuries since late 2017; quick spread of e-scooters surprised some cities  —  A Consumer Reports investigation finds 1,500 e-scooter injuries across the country, and many hospitals still don't track them
Motherboard:
Inside the illicit world of “iCloud unlocking”, where cybercriminals trick iPhone owners or Apple staff into removing iCloud accounts to resell iPhones  —  In a novel melding of physical and cybercrime, hackers, thieves, and even independent repair companies are finding ways to “unlock iCloud” from iPhones.
Patrick Howell O'Neill / Gizmodo:
If Reddit lands a $150M Tencent investment, they'd make strange bedfellows: Tencent helps build the Great Firewall; Reddit's product, banned in China, is speech  —  Who really thinks about where the money is coming from as long as you get the money?  —  Reddit is about to get a huge new round …

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
Introducing Microsoft-Decision-1, our model for fast decision-making  —  Our new model delivers top performance in latency and quality on structured decision tasks to outperform other models.
Will Reed:
The best sales leaders aren't job hunting.  Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach.  —  Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.
Zoho:
Zoho Books now supports CT600 & Final Accounts Filing as an add-on in the FREE plan  —  Managing end-of-year filing for limited companies in the UK is often expensive and multi-layered.
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:
Meta & Microsoft's Claude Slowdown, His Agent Leaked His Banking Info, Don't Bully Your AI
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.
Sources:
Qualcomm's CEO on the coming AI phone supercycle
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.
Subscribe to Sources.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Bringing Back Mammoths And Building Noah's Ark 2.0 | Colossal's Ben Lamm
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.
Great Chat:
The launch industrial complex
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Larry Ellison's Media Ambitions & Kevin Roose on AI's Biggest Gamble
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Training Data:
Google's AI Infrastructure Chief, Amin Vahdat, on the Physics & Economics of Frontier AI
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:15 AM ET, February 7, 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

Earlier Picks

Manish Singh / VentureBeat:
BuzzFeed News:
Apple:
Jeremy Burge / Emojipedia:
Robert Hackett / Fortune: