Techmeme
February 16, 2019, 5:50 PM

Top News

Jason Del Rey / Recode:
Amazon's grave NYC HQ2 mistake: the political landscape changed but the company's playbook didn't  —  The HQ2 contest was very Amazonian.  So was its refusal to back down.  —  No one looks good in the wake of Amazon's decision to scrap plans for a giant New York headquarters in Long Island City, Queens.
Brad Stone / Bloomberg:
Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:
Records obtained via FOIA requests and interviews with local officials reveal the unusual lengths Google goes to keep its data center construction plans secret  —  Last May, officials in Midlothian, Tex., a city near Dallas, approved more than $10 million in tax breaks for a huge …
Ryan Mac / BuzzFeed:
Twitter hides a tweet, reportedly from Iran's head of state, for pointing out that a previous leader's verdict to murder novelist Salman Rushdie is still valid  —  Twitter has previously used a newsworthiness standard to defend its refusal to apply abuse and harassment rules to President Donald Trump's account.
TechCrunch:
Security researcher says Twitter retains direct messages for years, including messages users have deleted, which may be illegal under the EU's new GDPR laws  —  When does “delete” really mean delete?  Not always or even at all if you're Twitter .  —  Twitter retains direct messages for years …
Axios:
Sources: Apple buys Pullstring, an SF-based enterprise voice app developer, for up to $40M; Pullstring has raised around $44M in venture capital  —  Apple has agreed to buy Pullstring, a San Francisco-based startup that enables the design and publishing of voice apps, Axios has learned.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google rolls out ARCore 1.7 with a new Augmented Faces API for the front-facing camera that can overlay effects on a user's face even without a depth sensor  —  ARCore is Google's platform for mobile augmented reality which does not require specialized hardware.

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More News

Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:

Earlier Picks

Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios:
Matthew Gardner / ITEP:
Stefan Etienne / The Verge:
Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:
Sam Byford / The Verge: