Techmeme: BBC says it plans to expand its Sounds app, which had 1.7M downloads since its launch over four months ago, with third party podcasts and live radio shows (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Top News

Russell Brandom / The Verge:

US Department of Housing and Urban Development files charges against Facebook, saying the company's ad targeting tools enable violations of Fair Housing Act — 'Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live,' says HUD secretary

More: HUD.gov, Axios, The Hill, ZDNet, Yahoo Finance, Washington Post, Bloomberg, VentureBeat, Mercury News, New York Times, Gizmodo, BuzzFeed News, CityLab, Silicon Valley Business …, Motherboard, TechSpot, Adweek, Fortune, Financial Times, Street Fight, Engadget, and Newser

Tweets: @mattmcgee, @russellbrandom, @drewharwell, and @profcarroll

Adam Satariano / New York Times:

UK's review of Huawei's telecommunications equipment finds “significant” security problems but does not call for an outright ban — LONDON — A British review of Huawei found “significant” security problems with the Chinese company's telecommunications equipment …

Jon Porter / The Verge:

Spotify is testing Premium Duo, a discounted subscription for two for €12.49 a month, that includes a playlist based on both users' listening habits — Includes a new playlist based on both your listening habits — Spotify is testing a new subscription called Premium Duo that offers …

More: Spotify, Thurrott, Gizmodo, 9to5Mac, Digital Trends, CNET, Engadget, KnowTechie, iPhone in Canada Blog, TechCrunch, MacRumors, XDA Developers, TechSpot, SlashGear, Cult of Mac, and Neowin

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:

Microsoft granted US court order to take control of 99 websites the company says are linked to Iranian hacking group Phosphorus and host them on its own servers — Microsoft has won a restraining order in a U.S. court in order to take control of domains used by an Iranian hacker group.

More: Microsoft on the Issues, ZDNet, New York Times, Thurrott, The Hill, WinBuzzer, MSPoweruser, Softpedia News, SecurityWeek, Bloomberg, BleepingComputer, CyberScoop, and GeekWire

Tweets: @siarotterdam, @msftissues, and @zackwhittaker

Juli Clover / MacRumors:

Apple releases watchOS 5.2 with support for the second-generation AirPods, extends ECG functionality to Hong Kong, the UK, and 18 other countries in Europe — Apple today released watchOS 5.2, the fifth update to the watchOS operating system that runs on modern Apple Watch models. watchOS 5.2 comes …

More: Apple, The Next Web, ZDNet, 9to5Mac, Apple Must, Engadget, Neowin, Inquirer, MacStories, SlashGear, Macworld, TmoNews, Telegraph, Thurrott, TechCrunch, iPhone Hacks, and iPhone in Canada Blog. Tweets: @viticci

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Kong, the open source API management platform company previously known as Mashape, raises $43M Series C led by Index Ventures — Kong, the open core API management and lifecycle management company previously known as Mashape, today announced that it has raised a $43 million Series C round led by Index Ventures.

More: KongHQ, SiliconANGLE, VentureBeat, Going Long, Index Ventures, and PE Hub Blog

Faiz Siddiqui / Washington Post:

Twitter's policy head Vijaya Gadde says it is experimenting with adding a “label” to notable tweets that break its standards explaining why they weren't removed — Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's head of legal, policy and trust & safety, made the revelation on stage at a Washington Post-sponsored event in San Francisco.

More: The Hill

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:

Office Depot and tech support vendor Support.com to pay the FTC $35M for allegedly persuading customers to buy computer repair services using fake malware scans — Office Depot and Support.com, Inc, a tech support software provided from California, will pay $35 million and $10 million respectively …

More: Federal Trade Commission, Engadget, Federal Trade Commission, Jesse Jones Seattle, CyberScoop, Fortune, The Register, TechSpot, Boing Boing, MarketWatch, and Financial Times

Tweets: @onejarednewman, @cstross, and @tomgara

Russell Brandom / The Verge:

Google CEO Sundar Pichai met with President Trump to discuss contracts and other ongoing partnerships with the US government — ‘Meeting ended very well,’ Trump tweeted — On Wednesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai met with President Trump to discuss contracts and other ongoing partnerships with the US government.

More: Axios, PYMNTS.com, PhoneArena, Bloomberg, Business Insider, CNET, and Seeking Alpha

Tweets: @realdonaldtrump, @daiwaka, @daiwaka, @politico, and @verge

Nick Statt / The Verge:

Twitch launches Squad Stream, a new feature that will let up to four Twitch streamers go live simultaneously in one window, available for Partners first — A feature perfect for battle royale games — Twitch today announced a new feature designed to help creators boost the profile …

More: Twitch Blog, TechCrunch, KnowTechie, Engadget, VentureBeat, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, SlashGear, Tubefilter, CNET, VG247, bit-tech.net, Variety, and GeekWire. Tweets: @twitch

Jeff John Roberts / Fortune:

As market for facial recognition software heats up, concerns about how and when facial data is collected remain largely unaddressed due to lack of regulations — While you weren't looking, tech companies helped themselves to your photos to power a facial recognition boom. Here's how.

More: CNET and BREAKERMAG. Thanks:@jeffjohnroberts

C4ADS:

Analysis of GPS data finds 9,800+ GPS spoofing instances since 2016, likely to protect sensitive military and VIP travel areas in the Russian Federation — EXECUTIVE SUMMARY GPS and other Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are used in everything from cellular communication networks …

More: Dark Reading and Axios

Tweets: @c4ads, @c4ads, @jack_mrgln, and @malachybrowne

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:

Rela, a popular Chinese lesbian dating app, exposed data on 5M users, including dates of birth, height and weight, and sexual preferences, since June 2018 — Rela (.), a popular dating app for gay and queer women, has exposed millions of user profiles and private data because a server wasn't protected with a password.

More: Silicon Republic, Gizmodo, The Mac Observer, and TechNode

M.G. Siegler / 500ish Words:

Apple's “It's show time” event was weird, with very little tech, a focus on content and star power, and Oprah basically pitching others to sign up with Apple — Some thoughts on Apple's truly bizarre “It's Showtime” event — Note: this preamble was adapted from my newsletter published yesterday.

Tweets: @stevecheney

Ryan Gallagher / The Intercept:

Sources: Google is secretly assessing work completed on Dragonfly, its censored search engine for China, leaving some staff concerned work on it continues — Google executives are carrying out a secret internal assessment of work on a censored search engine for China, The Intercept has learned.

More: TechNode, Observer, CNBC, and Seeking Alpha

Tweets: @pelstrom, @rj_gallagher, @rj_gallagher, @rj_gallagher, @rj_gallagher, @rj_gallagher, @rj_gallagher, and @rj_gallagher

Nick Summers / Engadget:

Xiaomi Mi 9 review: great alternative to OnePlus 6T in terms of hardware performance but has an average battery life and unreliable in-screen fingerprint sensor — I can't spend $1,000 on a smartphone. I just can't. I've walked into countless phone stores, credit card in hand, with every intention of buying the latest flagship.

More: Gizmodo, The Next Web, and TechRadar.com

Bloomberg:

A profile of Wang Xing, CEO of Meituan, which has 600K delivery people serving 400M customers a year in 2,800 Chinese cities and a market value of $36B — In China, Meituan has reshaped city life—and heightened a rivalry with a certain competitor. — In Beijing, it's often cheaper to have food delivered than to get it yourself.

Tweets: @venkatananth, @luluyilun, and @pelstrom. Thanks:@pelstrom

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

BBC says it plans to expand its Sounds app, which had 1.7M downloads since its launch over four months ago, with third party podcasts and live radio shows — Earlier this week, the BBC pulled its podcasts from Google's Podcast app and Assistant platform after determining that it wasn't getting enough …

More: Geek News Central, Digital Trends, and Mashable

Sponsor Posts

Google:

Try Gemini 3 Pro — Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life

Shopify:

Transform ML Experimentation with Tangle — Save months of compute time with Tangle, built by Shopify. Try this open-source platform to simplify ML workflows, ensure reproducibility, and seamlessly share with collaborators.

Zoho:

Contract Signed. Project Ready. Tasks Created. — Every project begins with a promise; a contract that outlines the deliverables, the timelines, and the terms. But for most businesses …

Bitrix24:

Bitrix24 powers the next generation of high-performing businesses — Chat, projects, CRM, and automation — all in one place. Replace dozens of tools so your team moves faster, collaborates smarter, and grows effortlessly.

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:

OpenAI Calls a 'Code Red' + Which Model Should I Use? + The Hard Fork Review of Slop

The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Subscribe to Hard Fork.

Access:

Is Roblox making the internet better or worse? We asked the CEO

A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.

Subscribe to Access.

Decoder with Nilay Patel:

Anthropic's quest to study the negative effects of AI is under pressure

A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.

Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.

Lenny's Podcast:

Why LinkedIn is turning PMs into AI-powered "full stack builders" | Tomer Cohen (LinkedIn CPO)

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.

Great Chat:

Code red: our favorite tech rivalries

A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.

Subscribe to Great Chat.

Big Technology Podcast:

How An AI Model Learned To Be Bad — With Evan Hubinger And Monte MacDiarmid

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.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:55 PM ET, March 28, 2019.

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.