Techmeme
October 8, 2019, 9:55 PM

Top News

Ina Fried / Axios:
Twitter says it has unintentionally used some email addresses and phone numbers provided for account security purposes for ad targeting  —  Twitter disclosed Tuesday that it “unintentionally” used some mail address and phone numbers for advertising even though the information was provided for account security.
Bloomberg:
Blizzard bans player from Hearthstone competition for a year and rescinds $10K prize money, after he publicly supported Hong Kong's pro-democracy protestors  —  - Expressing sympathy for Hong Kong democracy push proves costly  — Hearthstone player won't be allowed to compete for a year
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
As China exports its domestic standards, the US should treat China's leveraging of market access into self-censorship by US companies as trade violations  —  It all started with a tweet:  —  “It” refers to the current imbroglio surrounding Daryl Morey, the General Manager for the Houston Rockets …
Jeremy Burge / Emojipedia:
Janko Roettgers / Variety:
Google debuts a stream transfer feature that lets users move ongoing music and video streams between devices, coming first to Chromecast, Google Home, and Nest  —  At long last, Google is finally introducing a way for users of its smart speakers and streaming adapters to move media between those devices.
Washington Post:
Bipartisan Senate report makes recommendations to prevent Russian election interference in 2020, saying Russia sowed social media discord to help Trump in 2016  —  GOP-led panel endorses finding that Russia interfered to help Donald Trump  —  A bipartisan panel of U.S. senators Tuesday called …
Larry Dignan / ZDNet:
Facebook says its Workplace platform has 3M paid users, up 1M in the past eight months, and introduces new features, like Portal support and new analytics tools  —  Should Workplace by Facebook boost employee engagement and connect frontline workers, the company is likely to add more enterprise customers.
Zachary Evans / National Review:
FISA court rules that an FBI foreign surveillance program violated Americans' civil liberties, deeming tens of thousands of searches from 2017-2018 illegal  —  The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has ruled that an FBI program intended to target foreign suspects violated Americans' constitutional right …
Peter Rubin / Wired:
Sony announces PlayStation 5 will launch in time for “holiday 2020”, featuring a new controller with haptic technology and triggers with varying resistance  —  Now that the name is official, we've got more details about Sony's next-gen console—from the haptics-packed controller to UI improvements.
Paul Wagenseil / Tom's Guide:
D-Link won't patch a remote exploit in four of its routers, saying they are end-of-life, despite some being discontinued in 2018 and still being sold on Amazon  —  Models deemed end-of-life, although they're still sold online  —  A serious security flaw has been found in four D-Link routers.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Robinhood unveils Cash Management, which earns 2.05% APY interest on uninvested money in users' accounts, after 2018's botched roll out of its checking product  —  This time it actually has insurance.  Zero-fee stock trading app Robinhood is launching Cash Management, a new feature …
David Canellis / The Next Web:
Report on Dapp's across six blockchains, including ETH, EOS, TRON: total transaction volume was $2.03B in Q3, down 40% QoQ, dapp user retention from Q2 was 36%  —  GAMBLING IS STILL THE NUMBER ONE USE-CASE  —  The total transactional volume of blockchain apps (dapps) across …
Lori Hawkins / Austin American-Statesman:
Austin-based SparkCognition, which uses AI to monitor and predict when industrial systems may fail or be hacked, raises $100M Series C at a valuation of $725M  —  In one of the biggest Austin funding deals of the year, fast-growing SparkCognition has raised $100 million to accelerate its artificial intelligence platform.
Austin Carr / Bloomberg:
Interviews with 36 people shed light on Quintillion, a fiber internet company working in the Arctic whose co-founder, Elizabeth Pierce, forged $1B in contracts  —  When he discovered that the ship's underwater plow was stuck at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, 50 miles off Alaska's coast, Frank Cuccio thought of Ernest Shackleton.
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Opera 64 desktop browser launches with inbuilt tracking protection using the EasyPrivacy Tracking Protection List, a powerful screenshot tool, and more  —  Opera doesn't want to miss the browser privacy bandwagon, and it's taking an unusual angle to sell it: it's promising a speed boost.
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Norwegian e-paper tablet startup Remarkable raises $15M Series A from Spark Capital  —  Remarkable, the Norwegian startup behind the digital paper tablet of the same name, has raised $15 million in a series A round of funding from Spark Capital.  —  Founded out of Oslo in 2013 …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple's Catalyst rollout with macOS Catalina has been muted, as devs say it's been more work than expected to port iPad apps, and consumers need to pay again  —  Last year, Apple Inc. software chief Craig Federighi said developers would be able to easily bring their iPad apps to Mac computers …
John Voorhees / MacStories:

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Earlier Picks

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
New York Times: