Techmeme
April 18, 2022, 4:50 PM

Top News

Ronan Farrow / New Yorker:
An in-depth investigation into the $12B spyware industry, dominated by Israel's NSO Group, as Citizen Lab finds Pegasus infected a device in the UK's No. 10  —  The inside story of the world's most notorious commercial spyware and the big tech companies waging war against it.
The Citizen Lab:
An investigation finds 65+ Catalans were targeted by Pegasus or Candiru, likely by Spanish authorities, and details Homage, a new iOS zero-click used by NSO  —  Key Findings  — The Citizen Lab, in collaboration with Catalan civil society groups, has identified at least 65 individuals targeted or infected with mercenary spyware.
Matt Levine / Bloomberg:
A look at corporate raider tactics requiring 51% of a company's stock that tend to treat remaining minority shareholders poorly, amid Twitter's “poison pill”  —  Poison pills  —  Here are some things you could do 1 :  — Buy 51% of the stock of a public company in the open market over time …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
To unlock its vast potential, Twitter should go private and split into two companies: one for the service and social graph and one for its apps and ad business  —  Elon Musk wrote in a letter to Twitter's board: … The vast majority of commentary about the Musk-Twitter saga has focused …
Reed Albergotti / Washington Post:
Experts say open sourcing Twitter's algorithm will not increase transparency because recommendation engines are complex and use an immense fire hose of data  —  Conservatives have long claimed discrimination by the social network, but there's no one algorithm that could prove it, researchers say
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Report: Microsoft is working on a program to let select brands advertise within free-to-play Xbox games, such as on a billboard, and won't take a revenue cut  —  The ads supposedly wouldn't disrupt gameplay  —  Microsoft is reportedly working on a program that will let brands showcase …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Code on Twitter's site hints at how an upcoming Edit button may work: by making a new tweet with the updated content alongside a list of earlier related tweets  —  This month, Twitter announced the ground-shaking news that it was actually going to offer users a way to edit tweets — a longtime user request.
Stacey Higginbotham / Stacey on IoT:
Smart home and IoT company Insteon seemingly shuts down as home hubs stop working and top executives scrub the company name from their LinkedIn profiles  —  Is your Insteon smart home system down?  I'm getting reports from dozens of Insteon users that as of Friday their smart home hubs have stopped working.
Sarah McBride / Bloomberg:
SoftBank's Shu Nyatta and Paulo Passoni, two of three managing partners at its $2B Latin America Fund, said they are leaving to start their own VC business  —  SoftBank Group Corp.'s Shu Nyatta and Paulo Passoni, two of the three managing partners at the SoftBank Group Corp.'s Latin America Fund …

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More News

Ignacio Olivera Doll / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Kate Kaye / Protocol:
Michael McSweeney / The Block: