Techmeme
December 11, 2018, 5:50 PM

Top News

Joseph Menn / Reuters:
Hardware maker Supermicro says review by an outside investigations firm found no evidence of any malicious chips in its current or older motherboards  —  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Computer hardware maker Super Micro Computer Inc told customers on Tuesday that an outside investigations firm …
Scott Moritz / Bloomberg:
Verizon writes down the value of its AOL and Yahoo acquisitions by $4.6B in filing, amid tough competition in the digital advertising industry  —  Verizon Communications Inc. slashed the value of its AOL and Yahoo acquisitions by $4.6 billion, conceding that tough competition for digital advertising …
Shirin Ghaffary / Recode:
Recap of Pichai's testimony before Congress, where he said Google had 100+ people working on a Chinese search engine at one point but has no plans to launch it  —  Here's what we learned when the search giant's CEO answered questions from the House Judiciary Committee.
Abigail Geiger / Pew Research Center:
Pew: one in five US adults say they frequently get their news from social media, surpassing the number who get theirs from print (16%) for the first time  —  Social media sites have surpassed print newspapers as a news source for Americans: One-in-five U.S. adults say they often get news via social media …
Robert D. McFadden / New York Times:
Evelyn Berezin, who designed and built the first true word processors around 1970 as the founder and president of Redactron, has died at 93  —  Evelyn Berezin, a computer pioneer who emancipated many a frazzled secretary from the shackles of the typewriter nearly a half-century ago by building …
Kate Rooney / CNBC:
Plaid, which makes tools to let other apps connect to users' bank accounts, raises $250M Series C led by Mary Meeker, source says at a $2.65B valuation  —  - The San Francisco-based company announced its latest $250 million funding round led by venture capital veteran Mary Meeker, who is also joining Plaid's board.
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Dell votes to buy back VMware tracking stock and go public again, to trade on NYSE beginning December 28 under the symbol DELL  —  Dell just announced that it has agreed to buy back the VMware tracking stock from the EMC acquisition.  The company confirmed the buy-back price of $120 per share for a total of $23.9 billion.
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Report: Uber operations manager sent 890-word email to execs with serious concerns about autonomous program just days before an Uber vehicle killed a pedestrian  —  Solutions that could have prevented collision were proposed  —  An 890-word email was sent to Uber's executives …
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Google to shut down consumer version of Google+ in Apr. 2019 instead of Aug. and retire Google+ APIs within 90 days, after finding API bug impacting ~52.M users  —  After discovering another security issue potentially impacting 52.5 million users, Google today announced that the consumer version …
Matt Novak / Gizmodo:
DHS watchdog finds numerous problems with Customs and Border Protection's data security, including leaving data copied from traveler's devices on thumb drives  —  Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) searched through the electronic devices of more than 29,000 travelers coming into the country.
More: Engadget and TechSpot
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Latest recommendations for EU's Article 13 seek to appease both the legacy copyright industries and the tech companies without actually addressing key concerns  —  As we've been discussing the “Trilogue” negotiations between the EU Commission, EU Council and EU Parliament over the EU's Copyright Directive …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Four years after launching in the US, Apple brings Apple Pay to Germany with 15 supported banks and services  —  Apple's mobile payment technology has finally launched in Germany, some four years after it debuted in the U.S.  —  On its newly launched Apple Pay website for Germany …

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Earlier Picks

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BBC:
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