Techmeme: This machine kills trolls: how Wikipedia's robots and cyborgs snuff out vandalism (Jesse Hicks/The Verge)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News

February 19, 2014, 10:50 AM

Top News

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Microsoft SkyDrive becomes OneDrive, gets camera backup for Android, real-time co-authoring, and easier video sharing — Microsoft today officially relaunched SkyDrive as OneDrive, giving its existing users access to their files on the new service by simply logging in at onedrive.com.

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Google Capital Invests $40M In Learning Analytics Firm Renaissance Learning At $1B Valuation — Renaissance Learning, one of the leading cloud-based K-12 assessment and learning analytics companies, today announced that it has raised a $40 million investment from Google Capital.

More: The Official Google Blog, Re/code, VentureBeat, CNET, Fortune, The Next Web, Softpedia News, PE Hub Blog and WebProNews

Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:

Apple bringing iTunes Festival to the US for the first time at SXSW, for five nights in March — Apple has announced that it is bringing the iTunes Festival to the United States for the first time, after being a UK-only event since it began in 2007. The festival will be held at SXSW …

More: Apple, The Next Web, CNET, AppleInsider, iMore, MacRumors, The Verge, Gigaom, TechCrunch, The Loop, Softpedia News, App Advice, FSMdotCOM, iPad, everythingiCafe, iPhone in Canada Blog, Cult of Mac and iDownloadBlog.com. Tweets: @benjaminzamayo

Kate Kaye / AdAge:

Amazon and Apple struggle with ad growth because they're “slow, cocky and downright stingy” according to media buyers — Why Can't Amazon And Apple Catch a Break on Madison Ave? — Advertising Sales Are a Tough Slog for Both — And for A lot of the Same Reasons — Goodby, Silverstein and Partners

More: TheStreet.com, Fortune, Breaking Apple News …, TechCrunch, Softpedia News, The Mac Observer, Ubergizmo, MacRumors, Computerworld, iPhone Hacks, iMore and App Advice. Tweets: @amir

Alistair Barr / USA Today:

Sources: new Samsung Gear smartwatch to run on Tizen, not Android — Samsung's updated smartwatch to shun Android — SAN FRANCISCO - The new version of Samsung's Gear smartwatch will run on Tizen, not Google's Android operating system, the latest attempt by the South Korean electronics giant …

Jesse Hicks / The Verge:

This machine kills trolls: how Wikipedia's robots and cyborgs snuff out vandalism — At midnight on February 13th, 2014, a Wikipedia user named Lightningawesome added to the list of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic characters a lengthy biography of Lightning Dash, a capricious, lovable filly existing only in fan fiction.

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

After Raising $10M From USV, SideCar Pivots To Offer A Ride-sharing Marketplace — Peer-to-peer ride-sharing startup SideCar is releasing a brand new version of its app for both passengers and drivers, which will provide more flexibility for drivers and more choice for passengers.

More: A VC, Gigaom, CNET, Re/code and Reuters. Tweets: @om

Ilya Khrennikov / Bloomberg:

In Russia, iPhone sales doubled in 2013 to 1.57M, largest carriers now resuming iPhone sales — Apple Drags Russia's Mobile Carriers Kicking and Screaming Into the iPhone Era — After years of wooing, Russian mobile carriers are finally coming around to the iPhone — not that they have much choice.

More: Mobile Marketing Watch, MacNN, iPhone Hacks, AppleInsider and Electronista

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

HP Explores Settlement of Autonomy Shareholder Lawsuit — Hewlett-Packard has begun talks with a shareholders' group that sued the company and CEO Meg Whitman over the botched 2011 acquisition of the British software firm Autonomy about a possible settlement, sources familiar with the situation tell Re/code.

Reuters:

HP was aware of Autonomy's loss-making hardware sales: FT

More: bizjournals, Digits and Business Insider

Matt Burns / TechCrunch:

Google Explains How Not To Be A Glasshole — Here are the do's and don'ts of wearing Google Glass. Right from Google. — Apparently — and I know this might be a shocker — you're not supposed to stand in the corner of the room and record people with Google Glass.

Jeremy Wagstaff / Reuters:

Upsetting the app cart: Asian messaging services challenge mobile order — (Reuters) - Asian chat services KakaoTalk, LINE and WeChat threaten to overturn the mobile order of things, usurping the role of Google Inc, Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Facebook Inc and telecoms carriers as gatekeeper to the consumer.

More: stratechery. Tweets: @jonrussell and @msab_xry

Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:

Whisper publicizes and claims it vetted a new Gwyneth Paltrow affair rumor shared by a user — Whisper, The Sequoia-Backed Secret Sharing App, Makes A Move Into TMZ Territory — Whisper, the popular anonymous social sharing startup that's raised $24 million from venture capital giants …

More: Gawker, Vanity Fair, social media, Business Insider, Racked National, Betabeat and BuzzFeed

Tweets: @neetzan, @fmanjoo, @whisperapp, @neetzan, @ryanlawler and @timcohn

See also Mediagazer

Monica Langley / Wall Street Journal:

Inside Target, CEO Gregg Steinhafel Struggles to Contain Giant Cybertheft — How Target Is Working to Manage Crisis After Theft of Credit and Debit Card Numbers From Millions of Customers — When hackers broke into the database of department store Target, it affected an estimated 100 million customers.

David Meyer / Gigaom:

Yandex offers apps-and-services bundle to help others build non-Google Android devices — The Android Open Source Project, or AOSP, allows anyone to build a device using the basic Android operating system, without Google's permission. However, that also means forgoing all of the Google services …

More: The Next Web, TechCrunch and Bloomberg

Jon Russell / The Next Web:

Nokia Treasure Tag is a $30 Lumia accessory to help keep valuables safe - goes on sale in April — Nokia is introducing a new way to keep valuables safe on the go using your smartphone. Nokia Treasure Tag is a smart peripheral that syncs with Lumia devices to help keep track of keys …

More: Nokia Conversations, Gizmodo, Gigaom, BetaNews, The Verge, Digital Trends, Engadget, TechCrunch, WinBeta, Electronista, GeekWire, Wpxbox, SlashGear, Phones Review and Ubergizmo

Digits:

Apple's smartphone market share in China grows to 7%, now back in top 5 smartphone vendors — Apple Gains Some Ground in China Smartphone Market — Apple seems to be gaining some ground in the world's largest smartphone market. — In China, Apple's market share rose slightly …

More: The Next Web, Tech in Asia, MacRumors, Business Insider, 9to5Mac, TechCrunch, Breaking Apple News …, Electronista, App Advice, ZDNet and AppleInsider

Tweets: @juroosawa and @wsj

Dan Farber / CNET:

Artemis aims to eliminate congestion, dead zones and unreliable connections in cellular networks using pCell technology — Is pCell the Holy Grail of wireless networking? — Serial entrepreneur Steve Perlman claims that his new patented technology can create the wireless network of our dreams.

More: New York Times, Re/code, The Verge, IEEE Spectrum Recent …, VentureBeat, EE Times and Wired

Tweets: @bijan and @al3x

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Opera Opens Pre-Registration For Its Data-Savings Android App — Last December, Opera announced Max, a free app that would use Opera's servers to compress all the non-encrypted data to your Android device. At the time, it opened up sign-ups for a small private alpha test, but starting today …

More: TechHive, DSLreports, The Register, Android Community, The Droid Guy, Android Police, Gigaom, gHacks Technology News and CNET

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Password leak in WeMo devices makes home appliances susceptible to hijacks — Security researchers have taken the unusual step of recommending that people stop using Belkin's WeMo home automation products after uncovering a variety of vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit to take control …

More: Krebs on Security, US-CERT, HomeTechTell, ReadWrite, Help Net Security, SlashGear, eWeek, CNET, Lifehacker, MacNN, SecurityWeek, SC Magazine, Network World, Threatpost and Softpedia News. Tweets: @weldpond

Douglas MacMillan / Digits:

Peter Magnusson, former engineering director at Google, joins Snapchat as a VP of engineering — Snapchat Poaches Google Veteran in Engineering Push … “What differentiates Snapchat from most other tech companies is that the service constantly erases messages from its servers …

More: Softpedia News, The Register, SlashGear, Business Insider and Gigaom

Tweets: @petersmagnusson, @mikeisaac and @sfiegerman

Wall Street Journal:

Iranian infiltration of US Navy computer network far more extensive than previously thought — Iranian Hacking to Test NSA Nominee Michael Rogers — Infiltration of Navy Computer Network More Extensive Than Previously Thought — WASHINGTON—Iran's infiltration of a Navy computer network …

Tweets: @wsjd

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

New Bing Apps For Windows Phone Point To Increasing Platform Unity From Microsoft — This morning Microsoft announced updates to Bing apps for Windows Phone (News, Finance, Weather, Sports), and new Bing-based apps for the smartphone platform: Food and Drink, Health and Fitness, and Travel.

More: Search Blog, InfoWorld, The Windows Blog, Windows Phone, The Verge, Softpedia News, CNET, The Next Web and WinBeta

Jerome Segura / Malwarebytes Unpacked:

Banking trojan ZeusVM retrieves configurations hidden inside image files — Hiding in plain sight: a story about a sneaky banking Trojan — The Zeus/Zbot Trojan is one the most notorious banking Trojans ever created; it's so popular it gave birth to many offshoots and copycats.

More: Inquirer, FireEye Blog, SC Magazine and Computerworld. Tweets: @virusbtn

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!

F5:

Accelerate AI Adoption at F5's AI Virtual Summit — Learn how to architect, secure, and scale AI for production with real-world insights from industry leaders on June 23. Register now to save your spot.

Zoho:

Zoho RPA named a Leader in the 2026 RPA Technology Value Matrix by Nucleus Research — Zoho RPA has been named a Leader in the 2026 RPA Technology Value Matrix, published by Nucleus Research …

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.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:

SpaceX's IPO Triumph, Anthropic's Fable Fumble, OpenAI's Price War

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.

Access:

A top iPhone app developer reacts to Apple's new Siri

A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.

Subscribe to Access.

Hard Fork:

'Hard Fork' Live, Part 1: Satya Nadella and Cindy Cohn

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:

TBC's Alex Ksendzovsky: The Neurosurgeon Using Brain Cells To Build Better AI

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.

BG2 Pod:

The SpaceX IPO, Fable 5, AI Capex Update & Market Check w/ Gavin Baker, Andrew Fox & Clark Tang

Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.

Subscribe to BG2 Pod.

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.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:50 AM ET, February 19, 2014.

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.