Techmeme
April 16, 2018, 5:05 PM

Top News

Reuters:
Dept of Commerce blocks sales from US firms to ZTE for seven years, after alleged false statements to officials that followed guilty plea on sanctions violation  —  LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Commerce has banned American companies from selling components …
Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios:
Coinbase confirms acquisition of Earn.com, which lets users earn bitcoin by replying to emails and completing tasks, with CEO Balaji Srinivasan joining as CTO  —  Coinbase is acquiring Earn.com, a paid inbox service formerly known as 21 inc., with CEO Balaji Srinivasan joining as chief technology officer …
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / Motherboard:
GrayKey, the tool law enforcement's been buying to unlock iPhones, appears to work by brute forcing passcodes, another reason to use a strong alphanumeric code  —  Now that police agents can allegedly crack iPhones protected with passcodes made of six numbers, it's time to use longer, harder to guess and crack alphanumeric passphrases.
Issie Lapowsky / Wired:
Study: of 228 groups found running divisive Facebook ads during 2016 election, 122 were “suspicious” and ran 4x more ads than others, ~20 had known links to IRA  —  WHEN YOUNG MIE Kim began studying political ads on Facebook in August of 2016—while Hillary Clinton was still leading the polls …
New York Times:
China's Weibo backs down from censoring gay content following backlash from users, after saying it would ban it along with other content to comply with new law  —  BEIJING — With hashtags like #Iamgaynotapervert and images of hearts and rainbows, tens of thousands of Chinese residents took …
Dan Primack / Axios:
Swiss staffing and workforce development company Adecco acquires New York-based coding school General Assembly for $412.5M; General Assembly had raised ~$120M  —  Coding school General Assembly has agreed to be acquired for $412.5 million in cash by Swiss staffing and workforce development company Adecco.
CNBC:
Sources: Amazon Business has shelved its plan to sell and distribute pharmaceutical products after considering it last year; CVS stock up 5%+  —  - Amazon has shelved plans to sell and distribute pharmaceutical products through Amazon Business, its marketplace for business customers.
David Shepardson / Reuters:
T-Mobile fined $40M by FCC for failing to fix rural calling problems and playing ringing sounds to mislead “hundreds of millions” into thinking calls connected  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - T-Mobile USA Inc (TMUS.O) agreed on Monday to pay $40 million to resolve a government investigation …
Robert Draper / New York Times:
Profile of Dan Scavino, The White House's social media director and the only man that Trump trusts with his Twitter account  —  Unraveling the mystery of the inscrutable White House social media director, whose job is to help @realDonaldTrump stay unpresidential.
Laharee Chatterjee / Reuters:
Netflix reports revenue of $3.7B in Q1, up 40.4% YoY, and 7.41M global net adds, up 50% YoY, ahead of its 6.35M forecast, shares jump 6%+ in after hours trading  —  (Reuters) - Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) added more international subscribers than expected in the first quarter as a slate of original shows including …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Sony announces Xperia XZ2 Premium with 5.8-inch 4K HDR display and dual cameras focusing on ultra-low-light performance, with photos of up to ISO 51,200  —  ISO 51200 sensitivity  —  Less than two months after unveiling the Xperia XZ2 at Mobile World Congress, Sony is back again with the Xperia XZ2 Premium.

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Chris Wood / BBC: