Techmeme
February 20, 2018, 7:35 AM

Top News

Sheera Frenkel / New York Times:
Fact-checking the tweetstorm by Facebook VP of ads Rob Goldman on the Mueller indictment and Facebook's role in election interference by Russia  —  Rob Goldman, Facebook vice president for ads, tweeted about Russia's disinformation effort.  President Trump then cited him.  We fact-checked Mr. Goldman.
Nicholas Thompson / Wired:
Sources: Rob Goldman apologized internally at Facebook for his tweetstorm about Russian interference, saying “I conveyed my view poorly”  —  ON FRIDAY MORNING, just before 10am on the West Coast, the office of special counsel Robert Mueller published his indictment of 13 Russian operatives …
Mishaal Rahman / xda-developers:
Nuance discontinues Swype keyboards for iOS and Android after buying Swype for $100M in 2011, says it will focus on AI for businesses instead  —  For the longest time, one of the advantages of Android over iOS was the ability to use third-party keyboard apps available on the Play Store.
James Vincent / The Verge:
Research from Alphabet's Verily shows that blood pressure, age, whether someone smokes, and more can be deduced by analyzing scans of patients' retinas with AI  —  Experts say it could provide a simpler way to predict cardiovascular risk  —  Scientists from Google and its health-tech subsidiary Verily …
Nikkei:
Sony and five Japanese taxi operators plan joint venture to develop taxi-hailing system in Japan that uses AI to predict demand  —  Group teams with fleet operators to develop AI-powered dispatching  —  TOKYO — Sony will lead a new Japanese effort to develop a taxi-hailing system …
Mark Wilson / Co.Design:
After opening Snap Store this month, Snap sells special Jordan shoes at LA concert via QR code that sent customers to Snapchat for purchase, shipped same night  —  The social media company is looking at e-commerce as its next big revenue channel, and it's starting with some brand-new Jordans.
Ari Rabinovitch / Reuters:
Israel's OrCam, maker of an eyeglass camera for the visually impaired that can read text aloud and recognize faces, announces $30.4M round at $1B valuation  —  JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's OrCam, which has developed a visual aid for the blind, has completed a funding round that values …
More: Bloomberg and OrCam
Manish Singh:
Wikipedia Zero, which partnered with 97 mobile carriers in 72 countries to provide 800M+ users access to Wikipedia at no data cost, is being discontinued  —  In an unexpected development, the Wikimedia Foundation announced on Friday that it is discontinuing Wikipedia Zero …

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Usama Jawad / Neowin:

Earlier Picks

Tuomas Forsell / Reuters: