Techmeme
February 7, 2018, 3:40 PM

Top News

Richard Nieva / CNET:
Alphabet says Nest will be brought back under Google with Nest CEO Marwan Fawaz reporting to Google's hardware chief Rick Osterloh  —  Nest has sold 11 million devices, so Google isn't ditching the brand.  The new strategy: Try to get Google Assistant into more of Nest's smart gadgets in a war against Amazon's Alexa.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Report: Google is developing a subscription game streaming service codenamed Yeti that could either work with Chromecast or a Google-made console  —  Besides Android apps and the Play Store, Google's current gaming efforts are particularly centered around video livestreams on YouTube and Daydream VR.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Goldman Sachs is in talks with Apple to offer financing to Apple gadget shoppers, using its retail point-of-sale financing arm Marcus  —  Wall Street firm would lend to shoppers buying expensive Apple gadgets  —  As Apple Inc.'s AAPL 4.18% investment bank, Goldman Sachs GS 3.85% Group Inc …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Reddit bans r/deepfakes, which was devoted to making AI-powered porn using celebrities' faces, and updates site-wide rules regarding “involuntary pornography”  —  Reddit has banned the r/deepfakes subreddit that's devoted to making AI-powered porn using celebrities' faces …
Motherboard:
Wall Street Journal:
Snapchat is launching a tool to let TV networks pipe snippets of live broadcasts directly into the app, starting this Saturday with NBC's Olympics coverage  —  Deal could forge closer ties between traditional TV networks and Snapchat's parent company Snap Inc.  —  Georgia Wells and Benjamin Mullin
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Data from over 1.8M Uber drivers shows women earn $1.24/hour and $130/week less than men on average, in part because they drive slower and for fewer hours  —  Women drive slower than men, and for fewer hours  —  Men who drive for Uber earn roughly 7 percent more per hour than women …
Zack Whittaker / ZDNet:
US DoJ charges 36 people tied to seven-year cyber-fraud ring that secured $530M+ from selling stolen identities, more; 13 arrested in total with five in the US  —  Prosecutors said the case is “one of the largest cyber-fraud prosecutions” ever carried out by the Justice Department.
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Microsoft updates its Cortana app for iOS with native iPad support, two years after releasing it for iPhone  —  Microsoft today updated its Cortana app for iOS with native iPad support.  The design looks essentially the same as the iPhone version, but with an interface optimized …
Olivia Zaleski / Bloomberg:
Inside the battle among Airbnb investors and execs over whether to remain private or IPO; sources say founders and early employees cashed in ~$350M of equity  —  Investors and executives disagreed over when to take the home-rental company public.  The stay-private crowd is winning.
Craig Silverman / BuzzFeed:
Russian trolls posed as black activists on Tumblr and generated hundreds of thousands of interactions with anti-Hillary Clinton, pro-Bernie Sanders content  —  Tumblrs run by Russian trolls generated hundreds of thousands of interactions with anti-Hillary Clinton, pro-Bernie Sanders content.
Nat Levy / GeekWire:
Seattle-based VREAL raises $11.7M Series A led by Axioma Ventures to build a VR game live-streaming platform  —  Seattle virtual reality startup Vreal has landed an $11.7 million Series A round to continue building out what it calls the first VR live streaming and broadcast platform.
Jack Nicas / Wall Street Journal:
YouTube's recommendations engine, which drives 70%+ of its viewing time, often suggests conspiracy channels and more, even to users who don't seek them out  —  Google's video site often recommends divisive or misleading material, despite recent changes designed to fix the problem

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Earlier Picks

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