Techmeme
October 5, 2016, 5:10 PM

Top News

Matt Zapotosky / Washington Post:
US Justice Department confirms arrest of NSA contractor accused of stealing classified information  —  A government contractor has been arrested and charged with stealing highly classified information from the U.S. government, authorities announced Wednesday.
Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
Sources: Twitter board consulting advisers on how to deal with internal disagreement over possible sale, with Ev Williams in favor of and Dorsey against it  —  A few days before Twitter's Sept. 8 board meeting, as the company's finance team readied a presentation, it received conflicting directions on a crucial question.
New York Times:
Government official: Yahoo got FISA order to scan incoming email for terrorist digital signature, used existing spam filtering, no longer collecting this data  —  Yahoo was ordered last year to search incoming emails for the digital “signature” of a communications method used by a state-sponsored …
Brian Womack / Bloomberg:
Yahoo says the report that it built program to scan customers' incoming mail is “misleading”  —  @brianwomack , More stories by Brian Womack  —  Carefully worded statement calls Reuters article ‘misleading’  —  CEO Mayer is under increasing scrutiny ahead of Verizon deal
Sam Biddle / The Intercept:
New York Times:
Signal received federal subpoena with gag order earlier this year, demanding IP addresses, browsing histories, cookies, and more, but could hand over little  —  SAN FRANCISCO — It has been six months since the Justice Department backed off on demands that Apple help the F.B.I. break the security of a locked iPhone.
Reuters:
Sources: Twitter has told potential acquirers it's seeking to conclude negotiations by Oct. 27, the day it reports its Q3 earnings  —  Twitter has told potential acquirers it is seeking to conclude negotiations about selling itself by the time it reports third-quarter earnings on Oct. 27, according to people familiar with the matter.
Jim Finkle / Reuters:
Johnson & Johnson warns of vulnerability in 114K insulin pumps across USA and Canada that could cause overdose if exploited  —  Johnson & Johnson is telling patients that it has learned of a security vulnerability in one of its insulin pumps that a hacker could exploit to overdose diabetic patients …
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Amazon rolls out Prime Reading, giving Prime members free access to more than 1,000 Kindle books and magazines  —  Amazon has unveiled the latest perk for Prime members in the U.S.: access to “over a thousand” Kindle books, comics, magazines, and more.  —  With Prime Reading …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
PlayStation VR review: a decently priced and comfortable headset with some good launch titles, but held back by its motion controllers  —  This was supposed to be the year virtual reality broke out.  The Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, the first two high-end consumer devices on the market …
Justin Yu / CNET:
Google confirms delayed Lenovo Phab2 Pro phone with Google Tango AR tech will be available in November for $499 in the US  —  Clay Bavor, head of VR and AR at Google, has confirmed the release date of the first phone with Google's depth-sensing 3D camera system.  —  2016 is set to be a very big year for Google phones.
Farhad Manjoo / New York Times:
A look at MailChimp, the Atlanta-based startup that makes marketing tools for SMBs, which has never taken VC funding and is on track for $400M revenue in 2016  —  No venture capital, no Bay Area presence, no crazy burn rate: MailChimp's founders built the company slowly by anticipating customers' needs and following their instincts.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Scratch testing suggests iPhone camera lens exterior may not be as hard as pure sapphire  —  Apple has been using sapphire on its iPhone camera lenses for a few years now since the launch of the iPhone 5S, but it might not be as scratch resistant as you'd expect.

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.

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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:10 PM ET, October 5, 2016.

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

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Dieter Bohn / The Verge: