Techmeme
November 6, 2017, 2:45 AM

Top News

The Guardian:
Two Russian state-owned companies, VTB Bank and Gazprom, owned stakes in Yuri Milner's DST Global funds that invested in Facebook and Twitter pre-IPO  —  Institutions with close links to Kremlin financed stakes through business associate of Trump's son-in-law, leaked files reveal
T-Mobile:
T-Mobile and Sprint end merger talks after being “unable to find mutually agreeable terms”  —  Companies put an end to the extensive speculation around a transaction  —  Bellevue, Washington and Overland Park, Kansas — November 4, 2017 — T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS) and Sprint …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: inability to agree on controlling stake, valuation, and fear of opposition from regulators doomed the T-Mobile Sprint merger  —  After months of talks, billionaire Masayoshi Son was unwilling to give up control of his U.S. wireless network  —  During months of merger talks …
Wall Street Journal:
Billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who holds large stakes in Twitter, Lyft, and Apple, arrested in apparent power consolidation  —  Saudi leadership in recent months has clamped down on any traces of dissent  —  Saudi authorities carried out a new wave of arrests targeting royals …
Jeff John Roberts / Fortune:
Overview of Bitcoin's contentious SegWit2x fork, projected to occur on November 16, supported by some big Bitcoin startups and miners  —  Bitcoin has faced turmoil in the past but nothing like this.  In two weeks, a massive fight taking place among bitcoin insiders could produce a ruinous schism …
Associated Press:
Inside story: How Russians hacked the Democrats' emails  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — It was just before noon in Moscow on March 10, 2016, when the first volley of malicious messages hit the Hillary Clinton campaign.  The first 29 phishing emails were almost all misfires.
Laura Stevens / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon quietly rolls out a “Discount provided by Amazon” tag, discounting select items from independent merchants by up to 9%  —  The move allows the retail giant to compete more fiercely with low-cost rivals, but could hurt its relationship with big-name brands, manufacturers and merchants
Tweets: @matthewstoller
James Vincent / The Verge:
Researchers build real-world objects to fool neural nets into classifying them as different objects, trick Google classifier into thinking a toy turtle is a gun  —  New research shows how machine vision systems of all kinds can be tricked into misidentifying 3D objects
Elizabeth Grieco / Pew Research Center:
Pew: 26% of US adults get news from two or more social media sites, up from 15% in 2013 and 18% in 2016; 50% of Facebook news users get news via Facebook alone  —  Americans are more likely than ever to get news from multiple social media sites, according to a recent Pew Research Center report.

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Featured Podcasts

Channels with Peter Kafka:
Chuck Klosterman on Why Football Owns TV (and Why It Won't Forever)
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.
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Big Technology Podcast:
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon: Future Of AI Devices, AI Fashion, Blending Reality and Computing
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The Social Radars:
Christina Cacioppo, Founder & CEO, Vanta
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
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Invest Like the Best:
Patrick O'Shaughnessy - Creating on Principle
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
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Lenny's Podcast:
The non-technical PM's guide to building with Cursor | Zevi Arnovitz (Meta)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Special Edition: Key findings from the Microsoft AI Diffusion Report
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.
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Bloomberg: