Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise Site News
Techmeme
February 12, 2018, 6:55 PM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter

Top News

Wired:
A behind-the-scenes look at two tumultuous years at Facebook as it battled with fake news, its impact on the election, global affairs, and users' minds  —  ONE DAY IN late February of 2016, Mark Zuckerberg sent a memo to all of Facebook's employees to address some troubling behavior in the ranks.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is changing its iOS development strategy, moving away from an annual schedule crammed with major features and prioritizing reliability  —  The company is shaking up its development program to focus more on key features and push back others to the following year.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Android P to have deeper Google Assistant integration, better battery life, support for iPhone X-like notches, multiple screens, and foldable displays  —  Search giant tries again to win over valuable iPhone users  —  Android P to integrate more tightly with Google's Assistant
Matt Day / The Seattle Times:
Source: in a rare cutback, Amazon is laying off several hundred corporate employees in Seattle and hundreds elsewhere across its global operations  —  Amazon is cutting several hundred jobs in Seattle, and hundreds elsewhere, a rare layoff that appears to fall predominantly on its established consumer retail business.
Nicole Perlroth / New York Times:
Researchers: cyberattack caused disruption to Pyeongchang2018.com and local internet, which grounded drones and more during Winter Olympics' opening ceremony  —  A cyberattack caused the internet disruptions during the Winter Olympics' opening ceremony on Friday night, Olympic officials and security experts said.
Taylor Lorenz / The Daily Beast:
600K+ people sign Change.org petition calling for Snapchat redesign to be reverted as celebs including Chrissy Teigen, Kylie Jenner, MKBHD criticize update  —  Last week Snapchat rolled out its biggest redesign since the app launched in 2011.  —  The company split the app into two sections …
Aaron Tilley / The Information:
Source: Amazon is designing its own AI chip for use in Echo and other Alexa-powered devices, following its 2015 acquisition of chip maker Annapurna Labs  —  Amazon.com is developing a chip designed for artificial intelligence to work on the Echo and other hardware powered by Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant …
Louise Matsakis / Wired:
Snap Map now available on its own site and embeddable online as individual stories, a collection from a location or event, or stories from a specific area  —  WHEN HURRICANE HARVEY wreaked destruction in Houston last August, the country turned not just to cable television, but also to Snapchat.
Fitz Tepper / TechCrunch:
Instagram tests a feature showing users who has taken screenshots of their stories  —  Instagram is testing a feature that will show users when someone else takes a screenshot of their story.  Users included in the test are getting a warning that the next time they take a screenshot …
Google Cloud Platform Blog:
Google's Cloud TPUs, hardware accelerators custom-built to speed up TensorFlow ML workloads, are now available in beta, starting at $6.50 per Cloud TPU per hour  —  By John Barrus, Product Manager for Cloud TPUs, Google Cloud and Zak Stone, Product Manager for TensorFlow and Cloud TPUs, Google Brain Team
Kurt Wagner / Recode:
eMarketer says Facebook lost ~2.8M US users under 25 in 2017, predicts it will lose ~2.1M in 2018; Instagram's US users will grow 13%, Snapchat's by 9% in 2018  —  That's according to research firm eMarketer.  —  Facebook is losing young users even quicker than expected, according to new estimates by eMarketer.
MIX / The Next Web:
Another cryptocurrency startup, LoopX, pulls exit scam, deleting its site and online accounts after raising $4.5M in a series of ICOs in January  —  Another day, another exit scam: an emerging cryptocurrency startup more commonly known as LoopX has suddenly vanished out of thin air along with millions worth of its investors' savings.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
YapStone has raised $71M in Series C financing, aiming for $100M+, to take on PayPal, Stripe, and more in marketplace payments  —  While a part of the fintech world remains abuzz with crypo-talk, a startup that's built a business around the more traditional world of payments has raised …
More: PR Newswire.  Tweets: @ingridlunden
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / ZDNet:
AMD unveils Ryzen “Raven Ridge” desktop APUs with Radeon Vega graphics, ranging from $99 to $169, to shake up the entry-level and mid-range desktop PC market  —  AMD's unveiling of the Ryzen 3 2200G and Ryzen 5 2400G that feature built-in Radeon Vega graphics will shake up the entry-level and mid-range desktop PC market.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify's new AI commerce stack  —  Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.
Zoho:
Zoho People in 2025: A year in review  —  As we wrap up 2025, we're taking a moment to look back on a year filled with progress and transformation at Zoho People.  Our team has been constantly pushing boundaries …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box 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

Lenny's Podcast:
 The coming AI security crisis (and what to do about it) | Sander Schulhoff
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
 OpenAI's Potential, Google's Speedy Model, Copilot Hits Turbulence
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.
Hard Fork:
 Why Roomba Died + Tech Predictions for 2026 + A Hard Forkin' Xmas Song
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.
Access:
 Betting on reality with Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
 "Neither Side Is Used to Losing." Lucas Shaw on What's Next for Netflix and Paramount in the Battle for Warner Bros.
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
 Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
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 6:55 PM ET, February 12, 2018.

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.

From Mediagazer

CNN:
A list of times the Trump administration tested the limits of the First Amendment during his second term, stoking alarm among civil rights experts and critics

Paul Glynn / BBC:
HarperCollins UK drops children's author and comedian David Walliams following allegations of inappropriate behavior toward young women

Robert D. McFadden / New York Times:
Lou Cannon, a veteran Washington Post reporter who wrote several influential biographies of Ronald Reagan, has died at 92

More News

iFixit:
Teardown finds HomePod has great build quality, but a saw is needed to open the device; some parts, including the fabric mesh, can be easily removed

Earlier Picks

Chris Williams / The Register:
4,200+ websites, including USCourts.gov, UK's NHS services, other government sites were infected with cryptocurrency mining malware via hacked plugin
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter