Techmeme
April 17, 2018, 7:00 AM

Top News

Facebook:
Following questions from Congress about Facebook's web tracking of users who aren't logged in, the company details what data it collects and how  —  Last week, Mark Zuckerberg testified in front of the US Congress.  He answered more than 500 questions and promised that we would get back on the 40 …
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 acquires Earn.com, which lets users earn bitcoin by completing tasks, hires Earn.com CEO Balaji Srinivasan as CTO; sources say deal is valued at $120M+  —  Coinbase is acquiring Earn.com, a paid inbox service formerly known as 21 inc., with CEO Balaji Srinivasan joining as chief technology officer …
BBC:
FBI, DHS, and UK's National Cyber Security Centre issue joint alert warning of a Russian-led global campaign to attack and infiltrate internet infrastructure  —  State-sponsored Russian hackers are actively seeking to hijack essential internet hardware, US and UK intelligence agencies say.
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft announces the Azure Sphere stack for securing IoT devices, includes a Linux-based OS, custom silicon for microcontrollers, and matching cloud service  —  Microsoft is introducing new custom silicon, a Linux-based embedded OS and cloud service aimed at securing microcontroller-based devices.
Alfred Ng / CNET:
TaskRabbit informs users that it is investigating a cybersecurity incident and that it has temporarily taken down its app and website  —  The handyman-for-hire app sent an email to users today recommending they change their passwords if they used the same ones for different websites.
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 — Bowing to intense pressure from millions of internet users, a Chinese social media site said on Monday that it would scrap plans …
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.
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.
Eliot Brown / Wall Street Journal:
Pitchbook: US VC firms are at record levels of late-stage funding with 102 startups receiving at least $50M in Q1 2018, totaling $16B  —  The rush of venture funds has led to bidding wars and heightened concerns that the sector is overvalued  —  When Tony Xu, chief executive …
More: PYMNTS.com
Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch:
Lyft says its drivers have earned $500M+ in tips since the company was founded in 2012; tip averages up 8% YoY in 2017 due to app encouraging higher tip amounts  —  Lyft drivers have earned more than $500 million in tips to date, Lyft announced today.  Since fleshing out tip functionality …
More: Lyft Blog, CNET, and Mashable

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
Zoho Mail Admin Console: A complete overview  —  You just got added as an admin for your company's Zoho Mail account.  Someone from IT sends you a link, you log in, and there it is, a full console with everything …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Grit:
Ex-Twitter CEO on Why AI Needs a New Internet | Parag Agrawal
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
Anthropic's first technical PM on token maxing, the jagged edge, and living in the future | Dianne Penn
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:
What Happens If AI Fails?, Subprime Data Center Crisis, How Bad Can SpaceX Get?
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:
OpenAI Models Go Rogue + Kimi K3 Freakout + A.I. Superforecasting
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.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'A Scam Held Together With Patriotism and Golden Paint', With Quinn Nelson
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:00 AM 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

Earlier Picks

David Shepardson / Reuters:
CNBC:
Robert Draper / New York Times:
Issie Lapowsky / Wired: