Techmeme
December 17, 2018, 8:05 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Senate report: Instagram dwarfs all social networks, including Facebook, in Russia's IRA posts and engagements, yet FB execs have not been upfront about this  —  - Document prepared for Senate Intelligence evaluates posts  — Instagram tops Facebook in IRA posts and unique engagements
Washington Post:
Ryan Gallagher / The Intercept:
Sources: Google's plan for a censored search engine for China “effectively ended” after infighting, with a data analysis operation key to Dragonfly shuttering  —  Google has been forced to shut down a data analysis system it was using to develop a censored search engine for China …
DW.COM:
French economy minister says the country will introduce its own digital tax, dubbed the “GAFA tax”, on large internet and technology companies on January 1  —  In early December, Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said France would give the EU until March to come up with a deal on taxing US internet giants.
Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:
In a major real-estate expansion in New York City, Google says it will invest $1B+ in a new 1.7M square foot campus in Hudson Square in Manhattan  —  Search giant joins Amazon, Apple in growing outside the West Coast; addition of 7,000 jobs a ‘conservative estimate’
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Twitter fixes flaw in support form that leaked users' phone number country codes and other info, after noticing excessive queries from Chinese and Saudi IPs  —  Twitter accidentally exposed the ability to pull an account's phone number country code and whether the account had been locked by Twitter.
Parmy Olson / Forbes:
Babylon Health has claimed its AI bot is as good at diagnosing as human doctors, but sources say the AI's development was rushed and effectiveness exaggerated  —  ate one Friday evening in December 2017, a group of worried Babylon Health doctors sat down for a meeting with Ali Parsa …
Thanks:@bizcarson
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
North, an Ontario-based company that makes the $999 Focals AR glasses, acquires the IP and tech behind Intel's canceled Vaunt AR glasses  —  The Focals AR glasses should ship ‘very shortly’  —  North, the company behind the Focals AR glasses, has acquired the “technology portfolio” …

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Earlier Picks

Jon Porter / The Verge:
Khari Johnson / VentureBeat:
TMZ: