Techmeme
April 17, 2018, 6:30 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple plans to integrate recently acquired magazine app Texture into Apple News and debut its own premium news subscription service next year  —  Company integrating Texture purchase into Apple News offering  —  About 20 Texture staff were cut soon after Apple acquisition
New York Times:
Documents and emails show Cambridge Analytica's plans, now on hold, to debut its own token via ICO to help people store and sell their online personal data  —  SAN FRANCISCO — The embattled voter-profiling firm Cambridge Analytica quietly sought to develop its own virtual currency …
Sarah Skidmore Sell / Associated Press:
The Internal Revenue Service's payment site has been down for much of the day, preventing many Americans from filing taxes electronically  —  Just in time for tax day: the IRS website to make payments is down.  —  The IRS did not have an immediate explanation for the failure.
Shannon Liao / The Verge:
New York AG Schneiderman launches an inquiry into cryptocurrency exchanges, sending a letter to 13 of them, including Coinbase, Gemini, Kraken, and Bitfinex  —  New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman launched an investigation into bitcoin exchanges today, his office announced.
David E. Sanger / New York Times:
Microsoft, Facebook, 30+ firms pledge to not help states mount cyberattacks against “innocent civilians and enterprises”; Google, Apple, Amazon decline to join  —  WASHINGTON — More than 30 high-tech companies, led by Microsoft and Facebook, plan to announce a set of principles …
Catalin Cimpanu / BleepingComputer.com:
After Telegram moved some of its infrastructure to AWS and Google cloud, Russia banned 1.8M Amazon and Google IP addresses, impacting many other online services  —  Roskomnadzor, Russia's telecommunications watchdog, banned today over 1.8 million IP addresses belonging to Amazon and Google's cloud infrastructure.
Peter Bright / Ars Technica:
Intel unveils two Threat Detection Technology features: letting software scan system memory for malware using integrated GPUs and advanced telemetry tools  —  The company is also using its processors' performance monitoring to detect malicious code.  —  Since the news of the Metldown …
Kim Hart / Axios:
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn says she's leaving after 8+ years at the agency, a day after FTC's Terrell McSweeny, also an Obama nominee, announced retirement  —  Long-time Democratic FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn announced Tuesday that she will be leaving after more than eight years at the agency.
Davey Alba / BuzzFeed:
Sources describe turmoil at Kickstarter under founder and CEO Perry Chen, who retook the top job in March, as ~50 of 120 staff have left, including 7 top execs  —  Since founder Perry Chen took back the reins at Kickstarter, the company has landed in a period of turmoil set in motion …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Based on ARPU, Facebook might have to charge $11-$14 for monthly subscriptions to offset ad revenue, but it would empower users with choice and a sense of value  —  Would it make us love or hate ads?  —  Would being asked to pay Facebook to remove ads make you appreciate their value or resent them even more?
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Amazon quietly launches an Android browser for emerging markets in India, touting it as “fast, lite and private”  —  Amazon has quietly launched an Android web browser app for emerging markets, where access to mobile data and high-speed connectivity is more limited.
Thomas Fox-Brewster / Forbes:
Surveillance firm Terrogence, a US government vendor, has been building a massive facial recognition database from photos on Facebook, YouTube, and other sites  —  When Mark Zuckerberg appeared before the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica revelations …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google releases updated DIY AI Vision and Voice Kits for $89.99 and $49.99, with a Raspberry Pi Zero and a companion app for Android, available at Target  —  Launched last year, Google's AIY Projects are simple hardware kits for building AI-powered devices like an Assistant speaker and a camera with image recognition capabilities.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Twilio makes its SIM-based Programmable Wireless service for IoT developers generally available  —  For a communications platform like Twilio, getting into wireless always seemed like a logical next move and a year ago, the company did just that with the beta launch of its SIM-based Programmable Wireless service for IoT.

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI that works  —  Tribe builds tech for top AI companies.  Get in touch to learn how our bench of 500+ engineers and researchers can accelerate your roadmap.
Kulkan Security:
Hire Kulkan as your penetration testing partner  —  Kulkan prioritizes deep-dive manual security reviews, dissecting your software and infrastructure to find issues that once remediated can truly reduce security risk.
Zoho:
Environmental impact of remote support: Reducing carbon footprints in IT  —  Information technology is essential for powering core business processes and facilitating communication.
Mastodon:
Donate to Mastodon  —  Mastodon gGmbH, the non-profit behind the open-source software powering the social web, relies entirely on support from users like you.  Donate directly with a credit card or through Patreon.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Magatte Wade, Unlocking Prosperity in Africa (#53)
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Wed. 04/17 - Copilots Or The Biggest Model Wins? The Competing AI Visions.
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:30 PM ET, April 17, 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.

More News

New York Times:

Earlier Picks

BBC:
Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios: