Techmeme
May 17, 2018, 7:40 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Analysis of 1,450 ICOs finds 271 have red flags including plagiarized white papers, fake execs, promised returns; investors poured $1B+ into these 271 offerings  —  A Wall Street Journal analysis of 1,450 cryptocurrency offerings reveals rampant plagiarism, identity theft and promises of improbable returns
Dan Primack / Axios:
Google declines to provide the names of hair salon and restaurant used in controversial Google Duplex demo, or say whether the calls were edited  —  Google made headlines by demonstrating an AI-powered voice assistant that made haircut and restaurant reservations, without betraying that it isn't human.
Zack Whittaker / ZDNet:
A bug in the website of LocationSmart, which sells real-time phone location data, let anyone track people's locations across North America without consent  —  The bug allowed one Carnegie Mellon researcher to track anyone's cell phone in real time.  —  A company that collects the real …
Jessica Conditt / Engadget:
Hands-on with the $99.99 Xbox Adaptive Controller, designed for long-neglected video game players with disabilities, on sale later this year  —  Microsoft stumbled into the accessibility market about three years ago, with the launch of the Xbox One Elite controller.
Apple:
Apple's Everyone Can Code curriculum for Swift is expanding to schools serving blind and deaf students in the US  —  Apple is teaming up with leading educators for blind and deaf communities across the US to bring accessible coding to their schools.  Beginning this fall …
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Instagram will now let users share posts from their own and public accounts to Stories as a sticker on Android; coming to iOS next week  —  The line between posts and stories is getting even thinner  —  The line between Instagram posts and stories is getting even thinner today.
Max Chafkin / Bloomberg:
Peter Kafka / Recode:
YouTube launching a paid version of YouTube Music next week at $10/month; YouTube Red being replaced by YouTube Premium at $12/month  —  YouTube Music is launching Tuesday, and YouTube Red is going away.  It's being replaced by YouTube Premium, and it will cost extra.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
PayPal confirms it is acquiring Swedish payments company iZettle for $2.2B in an all-cash deal, making it PayPal's biggest-ever transaction  —  PayPal is taking its biggest bet yet on point-of-sale transactions, small businesses, and markets outside of the US, as it looks to raise its game against Square …
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Facebook announces partnership with US-based think tank Atlantic Council aimed at helping deter manipulation of the platform during elections around the world  —  Facebook today will announce a partnership with the Atlantic Council aimed at helping deter manipulation of the platform during elections around the world.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook to start testing ads in Stories today in the US, Mexico, and Brazil, says Stories has 150M daily users, defines a user as anyone who watches one story  —  After 14 months of silence since launching, Facebook Stories has finally announced a 150 million daily active user count for its Snapchat Stories clone.

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Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:
OpenAI Calls a 'Code Red' + Which Model Should I Use? + The Hard Fork Review of Slop
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.
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Access:
Is Roblox making the internet better or worse? We asked the CEO
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
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Lenny's Podcast:
Why LinkedIn is turning PMs into AI-powered "full stack builders" | Tomer Cohen (LinkedIn CPO)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
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Great Chat:
Code red: our favorite tech rivalries
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
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Big Technology Podcast:
How An AI Model Learned To Be Bad — With Evan Hubinger And Monte MacDiarmid
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More News

Alex Konrad / Forbes:

Earlier Picks

Ashlee Vance / Bloomberg:
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Graham Rapier / Business Insider: