Techmeme
May 25, 2018, 9:30 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: Essential, a startup co-founded by Android creator Andy Rubin, is considering selling itself and has canceled development of a new smartphone  —  - Company cancels development of second version of smartphone  — Startup has spent over $100 million on product development
BBC:
Some US news sites like the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune restrict access to users from EU as GDPR goes into effect  —  A number of high-profile US news websites are temporarily unavailable in Europe after new European Union rules on data protection came into effect.
David Meyer / Fortune:
Digital privacy activist Max Schrems files official GDPR complaints against Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram over forced consent  —  Europe's sweeping new data privacy regime came into effect this morning, and privacy activists are not wasting time in flexing their muscles.
Adam Satariano / New York Times:
As Europe enacts GDPR, EU officials are encouraging countries like Brazil, Japan, and South Korea to adopt similar laws by tying data protection to trade deals  —  LONDON — The notices are flooding people's inboxes en masse, from large technology companies, including Facebook and Uber …
Gary Horcher / KIRO:
After allegations Alexa recorded a private conversation and sent it to a person in contact list, Amazon says the case was extremely rare, is taking steps to fix  —  A Portland family contacted Amazon to investigate after they say a private conversation in their home was recorded by Amazon's Alexa …
Jason Del Rey / Recode:
Amazon says the Echo that recorded a private discussion interpreted background conversation as action confirmation, leading to recording and sending to contact  —  A couple says their device secretly recorded a private conversation of theirs and sent it to an acquaintance.
Jeremy Horwitz / VentureBeat:
Apple wins $538.6M from Samsung in iPhone patent retrial: $533.3M for infringement of Apple's design patents and $5.3M for infringement of its utility patents  —  Nearly six years after a federal jury awarded Apple over $1 billion in damages against Samsung for infringing on iPhone design patents …
Facebook:
Facebook will check images and text, who is being targeted, and any linked websites in issue ads as it begins to apply new policies  —  Political advertising serves an important purpose.  It helps candidates share their views with the public more broadly, and it can help encourage people to get involved in the political process.
Rob Leathern / Facebook:
Gabe Rivera / Techmeme News:
Sign up now for Techmeme's new newsletter, which goes out daily at 5pm Pacific  —  Today we're launching Techmeme's first newsletter.  Sign up here!  It goes out Sunday through Friday around 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern and, like Techmeme.com, summarizes the day's top tech news and commentary …
Sean Hollister / CNET:
Valve says Apple revoked its approval of the Steam Link app for iOS due to “business conflicts with app guidelines” and denied Valve's appeal  —  So much for easily playing PC games on your iPhone.  —  If you were hoping to stream PC games from your powerful gaming rig to your iPhone or iPad …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
PayPal and Google partner to integrate PayPal into Google Pay, which can be used to pay bills and more, starting later this year  —  Google earlier this year rebranded all of its payment services under Google Pay to help it double down on making transactions across its platform more frictionless (and more used).
Timothy B. Lee / Ars Technica:
Unsealed indictment shows federal prosecutors have charged three men with crimes related to December death of a Kansas man fatally shot in a swatting prank  —  Gamers charged with obstruction for deleting possibly incriminating messages.  —  Federal prosecutors have unsealed an indictment …
City Attorney of San Francisco:
San Francisco announces new regulations requiring scooter startups like Lime, Spin, and Bird, to halt operations by June 4 and apply for permits by June 7  —  New city law halting unpermitted scooter operations in effect June 4, scooter permitting system now activated
Zack Whittaker / ZDNet:
An API bug on T-Mobile's staff-facing website, since fixed, let anyone gain access to customer addresses, account PINs, and other details using a phone number  —  Exclusive: The exposed lookup tool let anyone run a customer's phone number — and obtain their home address and account PIN, used to contact phone support.

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Jason Koebler / Motherboard:
Janko Roettgers / Variety: