Techmeme
December 21, 2018, 11:50 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: Facebook is developing a stablecoin for money transfers on WhatsApp, focusing first on the remittances market in India  —  - First focus will be on remittance market in India, people say  — Social network is still working out its blockchain strategy
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Blind, an anonymous community chat app used by staff at Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and more, left one database server exposed from Nov. 1 to Dec. 19  —  One of the company's servers was exposed without a password for weeks.  —  Thousands of people trusted Blind, an app-based …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple says AI chief John Giannandrea, who joined from Google in April, has been promoted to its executive team as SVP of Machine Learning and AI Strategy  —  Apple today announced John Giannandrea, who handles machine learning and AI for the company, has been promoted to the Apple's executive team …
New York Times:
Sources: Reid Hoffman funded $100K project that secretly tested disinformation tactics against Roy Moore on Facebook and Twitter during the Alabama Senate race  —  As Russia's online election machinations came to light last year, a group of Democratic tech experts decided to try …
Loup Ventures:
Voice assistant test involving 800 commands shows Google Assistant answered 88% correctly, Siri got 75% right, Alexa got 73%, and Cortana got 63%  —  We recently tested four smart speakers by asking Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, and Cortana 800 questions each.
Reuters:
Sources: state-sponsored Chinese hackers breached networks of HPE and IBM, then used access to hack into their clients' computers in campaign called Cloudhopper  —  - Hackers working on behalf of China's Ministry of State Security breached the networks of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co and IBM …
CNBC:
Pranav Dixit / BuzzFeed News:
Indian government downplays order that seemingly authorizes ten government agencies to monitor, intercept, and decrypt data on all computers in the country  —  India's Ministry of Home Affairs, a federal government authority that controls the country's internal security …
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
iflix, a Netflix-like streaming service targeting emerging markets, is selling its Africa business to concentrate on Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines  —  Iflix, the emerging market Netflix competitor that's backed by Sky, is leaving Africa to double down on its business in Asia.
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Apple says it will stop selling iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 in its 15 retail stores across Germany after Qualcomm was granted an injunction by a Munich court  —  - Last week, a Chinese court ordered an injunction against Apple over an alleged patent violation filed by chipmaker Qualcomm.

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
Introducing Zoho connected apps for Google Gemini  —  Note: Now available to organizations in the Indian data center.  Support for other Zoho data centers will be available soon.AI assistants have gotten remarkably …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Channels with Peter Kafka:
The Weird, Big Business of Microdramas
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Big Technology Podcast:
How AI Should Handle News, Politics, Medicine, and Mental Health — With Campbell Brown
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Training Data:
Parallel's Parag Agrawal: Building a New Web for AI Agents
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Invest Like the Best:
Neil Movva - Making AI 10x Cheaper
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Grit:
Data Centers in Orbit by 2028: Baiju Bhatt on His Plans After Robinhood
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:50 AM ET, December 21, 2018.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Earlier Picks

Russell Brandom / The Verge:
BBC:
Arno Schuetze / Reuters:
Ime Archibong / Facebook: