Techmeme
October 6, 2017, 7:45 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: hackers stole NSA data on US offensive and defensive cyber capabilities from a contractor's laptop in 2015, likely via Kaspersky software  —  The breach, considered the most serious in years, could enable Russia to evade NSA surveillance and more easily infiltrate U.S. networks
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Analysis: what we know and do not know about Kaspersky Lab's alleged involvement in NSA contractor's laptop hack  —  The Wall Street Journal just published an incendiary article that says hackers working for the Russian government stole confidential material from an NSA contractor's home computer.
Sam Byford / The Verge:
Apple reveals new emoji coming to iPhone and iPad in a future iOS 11.1 update, will be available in the beta release next week  —  Apple has shown off more emoji characters coming to iOS in the future 11.1 update.  The characters are part of Unicode 10, which added 56 new emoji …
Politico:
Sources: White House Chief of Staff John Kelly's personal cellphone was compromised, potentially as long ago as December  —  White House tech support discovered the suspected breach after Kelly turned his phone in to tech support staff this summer.  —  White House officials believe that chief …
Kate Conger / Gizmodo:
Researchers: Apple granted Uber now-removed “entitlement” that let app record iPhone screen, even in background; Uber says it was to improve Watch performance  —  To improve functionality between Uber's app and the Apple Watch, Apple allowed Uber to use a powerful tool that could record …
Natasha Bertrand / Business Insider:
Analysis of six Facebook pages linked to Russian accounts, including Blacktivists and Secured Borders, shows ~19M interactions with posts  —  A Columbia University social media analyst has published his findings about the reach and engagement achieved by Russia-linked Facebook pages during the 2016 election.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple updates High Sierra with fix for APFS Disk Utility flaw that revealed password instead of hint and Keychain vulnerability that let apps dump passwords  —  Apple today released a supplemental update to macOS High Sierra 10.13, the first update to the macOS High Sierra operating system …
Rob Malda:
On Slashdot's 20th anniversary, cofounder Rob Malda reflects on the site's early days  —  I registered the domain name ‘Slashdot.org’ 20 years ago today.  I really had no idea.  —  Jeff chipped in a few bucks for the fees.  Kathleen told me the name was stupid.  I thought “That's kinda the point!”.
Tweets: @freecodecamp
Hayley Tsukayama / Washington Post:
Mattel says it's canceling its AI-powered Aristotle smart hub for kids after privacy and childhood development concerns  —  This post has been updated.  —  Mattel said Wednesday that it will not move forward with plans to sell a kid-focused smart hub, after new executives decided it did not …
Surur / MSPoweruser:
Now-deleted Microsoft Store listing said Harmon Kardon Cortana-powered speaker will cost $200 with six months of free Skype calls, on sale October 22  —  The official store listing for the Harman Kardon Invoke has leaked, and with it comes the final price of the smart speaker.

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference  —  Stop preparing for agents.  Start running them.  100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
App Spotlight: Google Sheets Magic Lookup for Zoho CRM  —  Our App Spotlight brings you hand-picked apps to enhance the power of your Zoho apps and tools.  Visit Zoho Marketplace to explore all apps, integrations …
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:
Special Report: Will AI Wipe Out Humanity? (And Who Profits)
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
The Atlantic's CEO on AI, Billionaire Owners, and Moonlighting as a Creator
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Sources:
Mark Zuckerberg on Muse, Meta's biggest AI bet yet
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Lenny's Podcast:
How we built Grok Bot in a month | Roman Ugarte (SpaceXAI)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Invest Like the Best:
Walter Russell Mead - How America Keeps Winning
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Grit:
The AI Race Has a Leaderboard | Arena CEO Anastasios Angelopoulos
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:45 AM ET, October 6, 2017.

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

Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Jack Nicas / Wall Street Journal:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat: