Techmeme
September 26, 2018, 4:50 PM

Top News

David Marcus / Facebook:
David Marcus repudiates WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton's Forbes interview, defending Facebook and calling Acton's attacks a new standard of “low-class”  —  [Disclaimer: no one at Facebook asked me to post this.  I just had to do it.  And these are my personal views exclusively.]
Parmy Olson / Forbes:
WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton talks about why he gave up $850M to quit Facebook early and his differences with Zuckerberg and Sandberg over monetization  —  hatsApp cofounder Brian Acton, 46, sits in a cafe of the glitzy Four Seasons Hotel in Palo Alto, California, and the only way you'd guess …
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Oculus announces updates to its platform, including a revamped Home with improved avatars and more, and developer-focused Hybrid Apps for porting 2D games  —  This year's Oculus developer conference — Oculus Connect 5 — was chock full of hardware, software, and games announcements …
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
Oculus announces the standalone Oculus Quest, shipping next spring for $399 with touch controllers and 50+ games at launch  —  Opening up the Oculus Connect 5 keynote with some announcements, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that its newest headset, called Oculus Quest …
U.S. Senate Committee On Commerce …:
Video stream of US Senate hearing on “Examining Safeguards for Consumer Data Privacy” with testimony from AT&T, Amazon, Google, Twitter, Apple, and Charter  —  U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation …
Will Oremus / Slate:
Sources at media outlets say they're seeing little to no ad revenue from Apple News despite huge traffic growth  —  The world's most valuable company is wooing the media with a human touch and a huge audience.  One thing it hasn't delivered: money.  —  In the years leading up to the 2016 U.S. election …
Ashlee Vance / Bloomberg:
Stripe CEO Patrick Collison says the company has raised $245M at a $20B valuation, up from $9B in November 2016  —  The famed Silicon Valley venture capitalist Reid Hoffman often says that his biggest investing whiff was passing on Stripe Inc. As each year ticks by, it's becoming easier …
Anna Hensel / VentureBeat:
Facebook says Facebook and Messenger Stories now have a combined 300M DAUs and it will roll out ads to Facebook Stories globally now and Messenger Stories soon  —  Facebook announced today at a press event in NYC that Stories now has 300 million daily active users across Messenger and Facebook …
Austin Carr / Bloomberg:
Iowa's attorney general says Uber will pay $148M to settle claims from all 50 states related to its 2016 data breach that exposed info of 25M+ US users  —  Uber Technologies Inc. will pay $148 million to settle claims related to a large-scale data breach that exposed the personal information …
Zach Koch / The Keyword:
Google says that in Chrome 70, coming mid-October, it will allow users to disable linking Google website and Chrome sign-ins  —  We recently made a change to simplify the way Chrome handles sign-in.  Now, when you sign into any Google website, you're also signed into Chrome with the same account.
Kim Zetter / New York Times:
Two years after many voter-registration networks were penetrated by hackers, voting infrastructure in US remains largely unchanged, despite officials' warnings  —  As the midterms approach, America's electronic voting systems are more vulnerable than ever.  Why isn't anyone trying to fix them?
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft announces that it is enabling keyboard and mouse support on the Xbox One, rolling out first to Xbox Insiders in the coming weeks  —  Game developers will have to enable the support  —  Microsoft is enabling keyboard and mouse support on the Xbox One.
Michael del Castillo / Forbes:
Veem, which uses bitcoin in connecting customers' bank accounts with clients and suppliers, raises $25M led by Goldman with GV, Kleiner Perkins among investors  —  Marwan Forzely has come a long way since his days at Western Union.  The serial entrepreneur, who sold his previous company …

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