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Techmeme
February 12, 2018, 6:45 PM
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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.
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 …
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 …
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.
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 and PE Hub Blog.  Tweets: @ingridlunden
Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:
Technologist who predicted “fake news”, Aviv Ovadya, and other experts warn new AI-powered tools to manipulate perception could erode people's trust in reality  —  In mid-2016, Aviv Ovadya realized there was something fundamentally wrong with the internet — so wrong that he abandoned his work and sounded an alarm.
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.
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.

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:45 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

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Trump says Stephen Colbert is a “pathetic trainwreck” and “CBS should, ‘put him to sleep,’ NOW”; earlier CBS aired the Kennedy Center Honors, hosted by Trump

Zachary Leeman / Mediaite:
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller calls for CBS staff who “revolted” over Bari Weiss' decision to postpone 60 Minutes' CECOT segment to be fired

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Comcast extends Mike Cavanagh's contract through January 1, 2029, and grants a ~$35M performance-based stock package; he's set to become co-CEO in January 2026

More News

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
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