Techmeme: Singapore to invest $360M in AI and other digital tech through 2020 and is already attracting US and Chinese companies with policies that support AI research (Yoolim Lee/Bloomberg)

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September 4, 2019, 8:25 PM

Top News

CNBC:

Google will pay a $136M fine to the FTC and $34M to the New York Attorney General to settle claims that it violated child privacy laws on YouTube — - Google marketed itself as the “leader” for content for children ages 6 through 11, the allegations claim.

Peter Kafka / Vox:

Google's FTC settlement, a pittance compared to its profits, shows the US political system and its outdated laws aren't ready to rein in powerful tech companies

More: Federal Trade Commission, CNBC, CNET, Fast Company, and TechCrunch

Tweets: @mikeisaac, @pkafka, @backlon, and @voxdotcom

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Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:

Unsecured database with 419M+ phone numbers linked to Facebook accounts found; FB says data was obtained before it disabled searching for users via phone number — Hundreds of millions of phone numbers linked to Facebook accounts have been found online. — The exposed server contained …

More: CNET, Gizmodo, The Next Web, CNN, USA Today, Business Insider, Axios, The Hill, Digital Trends, Telegraph, Engadget, TechSpot, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, Adweek, Cult of Mac, The Mac Observer, iDownloadBlog.com, MacDailyNews, iPhone in Canada Blog, Seeking Alpha, and CNBC

Tweets: @zackwhittaker, @profcarroll, @dhh, @joshconstine, @campuscodi, @johnpaczkowski, and @zackwhittaker

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:

Twitter says it has “temporarily” turned off the SMS-to-tweet feature, after Jack Dorsey's account was compromised — Twitter has “temporarily” turned off the ability to tweet via text message just days after the feature was misused by hackers to tweet a racial slur, bomb threat …

More: CNN, CNBC, Engadget, Digital Trends, Slate, ZDNet, NBC News, 9to5Mac, Adweek, Graham Cluley, Financial Times, Mashable, and Fast Company

Tweets: @twittersupport, @twittersupport, @twittersupport, @docdre, @w7voa, @lepp, @caseynewton, @zeynep, @josephfcox, and @wongmjane

Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times:

Brave browser exec hands evidence to Irish data regulator alleging Google uses hidden webpages to pass personal data of users to advertisers — Google is secretly using hidden web pages that feed the personal data of its users to advertisers, undermining its own policies …

More: Brave Browser, CNET, Marketing Land, The Register, TechSpot, PYMNTS.com, MSPoweruser, The Next Web, The Hill, TechCrunch, and Telegraph

Tweets: @johnnyryan, @madhumita29, @madhumita29, @marietjeschaake, @jason_kint, @carolecadwalla, @madhumita29, @johnnyryan, and @madhumita29

See also Mediagazer

Jordan Novet / CNBC:

Slack reports Q2 revenue of $145M, up 58% YoY, says it had over 100,000 paid customers, up 37% YoY; stock is down ~15%+ after hours — KEY POINTS — Stewart Butterfield, co-founder and CEO of Slack, at the 2018 WEF in Davos, Switzerland. — Shares of Slack, maker of the popular workplace chat app …

More: Business Wire, ZDNet, Crunchbase News, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Seeking Alpha, and Connecticut Post

Tweets: @jordannovet, @patrickmoorhead, @recode, @ericjackson, @storagezilla, and @stevekovach

Cade Metz / New York Times:

Allen Institute for AI unveils Aristo, a system that scored 90% on an eighth-grade science test and 80% on a 12th-grade exam, a breakthrough for AI research — SAN FRANCISCO — Four years ago, more than 700 computer scientists competed in a contest to build artificial intelligence that could pass an eighth-grade science test.

More: Fast Company. Tweets: @xamat, @allen_ai, @etzioni, and @andrewlbeam

Michael Zelenko / The Verge:

A look at the newly announced Light Phone 2, a $350 stripped back feature phone with an E Ink display, and how the company learned from the first generation — The Light Phone returns with many aspirations and not too many features — Released in the spring of 2017 …

More: Wired, TechCrunch, Engadget, Gizmodo, CNET, Fast Company, Mashable, The Light Phone, TechSpot, Business Insider, VentureBeat, Android Authority, and TechCrunch

Tweets: @mvzelenks and @pierce

New York Times:

Source: Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft held a daylong meeting with US government officials over 2020 election security — SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook, Google, Twitter and Microsoft met with government officials in Silicon Valley on Wednesday to discuss and coordinate on how best …

More: Engadget, Bloomberg, NPR, CNN, and CNBC

Zachary Fryer-Biggs / The Atlantic:

How the Pentagon is laying the groundwork for AI-powered weapons systems capable of taking lethal action without direct human input — Wallops Island—a remote, marshy spit of land along the eastern shore of Virginia, near a famed national refuge for horses—is mostly known as a launch site for government and private rockets.

Tweets: @noahpinion, @andrewyang, @inteloperator, and @theatlantic

Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:

Canada-based Clio, which offers cloud-based legal practice management, client intake, and legal CRM software, raises $250M Series D — A software company that helps law practices run more efficiently may not be the flashiest business in town, but that's not stopping some VCs from backing them with pretty high dollars.

More: VentureBeat, Globe and Mail, BetaKit, Silicon Republic, FinSMEs, and PE Hub Blog

Tweets: @bayareawriter and @fionafinnn

Logan McDonald / BuzzFeed:

Inside BuzzFeed's Tech + News Working Group, a collaboration between reporters and the IT team, leading to better understanding of issues, new tools, and scoops — This question — and many, many others like it — arose from an initiative called “The Tech + News Working Group,” …

See also Mediagazer

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Asus announces ROG Phone II Ultimate Edition with 1TB storage, Snapdragon 855 Plus, 6.59-inch 1080p OLED display, and 6,000mAh battery, for €1,199 — Just think of all the Android games you could take everywhere — Asus' ROG Phone II is already a flagship Android phone worth getting excited …

More: Engadget, XDA Developers, Digital Trends, Android Police, Inquirer, 9to5Google, and Tom's Hardware

Sean Hollister / The Verge:

Amazon announces over 20 Fire TV-branded devices, including a new Fire TV Cube and an Anker-made soundbar, as the company seeks to compete with Roku and others — The posts have been deleted, but the info is out — Amazon looks set to release a new Fire TV Cube and a host of new …

More: GeekWire, Engadget, TechCrunch, Engadget, Engadget, BBC, Android Authority, Variety, VentureBeat, The Verge, and The Verge

See also Mediagazer

Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg:

Singapore to invest $360M in AI and other digital tech through 2020 and is already attracting US and Chinese companies with policies that support AI research — Terms of Trade is a daily newsletter that untangles a world embroiled in trade wars. Sign up here.

Wade Tyler Millward / EdSurge:

Connected learning platform Chegg to buy Thinkful, a Brooklyn-based online coding bootcamp, for $80M; Thinkful has raised $16M in VC funding — Chegg, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based publicly traded student services company, plans to buy Thinkful, a Brooklyn-based online coding bootcamp.

More: PR Newswire and Crunchbase News

Megan Graham / CNBC:

Basecamp CEO: Google's practice of letting rivals pay for ads that appear ahead of their brand in organic results is a shakedown and like paying ransom — - The CEO of web-based project management tool company Basecamp sounds off on Google's search ad practices in a now-viral tweet.

More: Fortune, Search Engine Roundtable, Boing Boing, and Daring Fireball

Tweets: @jasonfried, @tobi, @megancgraham, @jsnell, @ryaneshea, @jason, @shiraovide, @anildash, @reckless, @adamconover, @shiraovide, @bgurley, @stshank, and @bgurley. Thanks:@lutherlowe

Natasha Singer / New York Times:

Medical groups say the new federal data-sharing rules, allowing patients to access health records through apps, lack strong data protections to preserve privacy — Americans may soon be able to get their medical records through smartphone apps as easily as they order takeout food from Seamless or catch a ride from Lyft.

Tweets: @nytimestech, @ragnarsmate, @went1955, @farzad_md, @drleanawen, @yoda, @yoda, and @yoda

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:25 PM ET, September 4, 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.

From Mediagazer

Naman Ramachandran / Variety:

BBC DG Matt Brittin says the BBC and UK public service broadcasting face “real jeopardy” as license fee erosion drives BBC's third consecutive annual deficit

Winston Cho / The Hollywood Reporter:

Letter: Tennessee Deputy Governor Stuart McWhorter urged David Ellison to move Paramount's corporate headquarters from California to Tennessee

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:

Trump's recent comment on a “normal path” for CNN raised eyebrows amid the Paramount-WBD merger; Paramount would need CNN revenue to help pay off $80B in debt

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More News

Paris Martineau / Wired:

YouTube's championing of its total number of takedowns for hate speech misses the point: hateful content often comes from high profile accounts

More: Bloomberg, Adweek, Geek.com, The Daily Dot, Social Media Today, and MediaNama

Tweets: @beccalew, @parismartineau, and @wired

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Ginger, which provides an app-based employee mental health platform, raises $35M Series C led by WP Global Partners, bringing its total raised to $63M

More: FinSMEs and Business Wire. Tweets: @ingridlunden

Adam Satariano / New York Times:

In one of the first cases of its kind, a British High Court has ruled that police use of live facial recognition does not violate privacy or human rights

More: The Guardian, Liberty Human Rights, walesonline, Financial Times, Fortune, Financial Times, and Inquirer

Tweets: @womaninhavana, @coreystoughton, @f_kaltheuner, @hannah_couchman, and @mattburgess1

Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:

Neura, a mobile app engagement analytics startup, raises $16M Series B led by Pitango Venture Capital and Liberty Technology Venture

More: VentureBeat

Cherlynn Low / Engadget:

Acer unveils Pro versions of its ConceptD laptops for creative professionals with Nvidia Quadro RTX graphics cards, available in November starting at $1,700

More: Tom's Hardware, Laptop Mag, ZDNet, Laptop Mag, The Verge, PC Gamer, AnandTech, Liliputing, and Digital Trends

Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch:

Railsbank, which operates an open banking and regulation compliance platform, raises $10M Series A led by Moneta Capital, opens a new office in Singapore

More: Fintech Singapore, DealStreetAsia, Tech.eu, and Finextra Research Headlines. Tweets: @railsbank

Noah Kirsch / Forbes:

Profile of Dean Stoecker, CEO and co-founder of data analytics company Alteryx, which went public in 2017 and generated $28M in profit on $254M revenue in 2018

Tweets: @asanwal and @forbes

Devindra Hardawar / Engadget:

Razer updates Blade Stealth ultrabook gaming line with Intel 10th-gen CPUs, Nvidia GTX 1650, 16GB DDR4 RAM, starting at $1,500, available end of September

More: Razer Press, Digital Trends, Laptop Mag, PC Gamer, Tom's Hardware, Windows Central, Inquirer, Thurrott, The Verge, MSPoweruser, SlashGear, AnandTech, Windows Experience Blog, and Gizmodo

Tweets: @digitalfoundry and @razer

Earlier Picks

Ian Allison / CoinDesk:

Elliptic, which uses AI to trace and locate suspicious transactions on blockchains, raises $23M Series B led by Tokyo-based financial institution SBI Holdings

More: TechCrunch, FinSMEs, PE Hub Blog, Fortune, and CNBC

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Microsoft and Qualcomm's Vision AI Developer Kit, which can run containerized Azure AI services locally, now available for $249 with Snapdragon 603, 8MP camera

More: Microsoft Azure Cloud …, ReadWrite, AI News, Windows Central, and InfoWorld

John Koetsier / Forbes:

The downloads of Bridgefy's Bluetooth-based messaging app, which uses a peer-to-peer mesh broadcasting network, have spiked amid protests in Hong Kong

More: Pocketnow and Quartz. Tweets: @wondermerchant

Tami Abdollah / Associated Press:

Facebook says a DHS policy that lets agents create fake profiles to monitor foreigners is against the company's rules requiring use of real names for accounts

More: Digital Trends, Gizmodo, and SiliconANGLE

Tweets: @justinhendrix, @katunews, @inquirerdotnet, @latams, @noupside, and @simonwdc

Lily Hay Newman / Wired:

Flaws found in Supermicro motherboards could let hackers remotely mount virtual USB drives; patch issued, but 47,000+ potentially exposed devices found online

More: Eclypsium, SiliconANGLE, and The Register

Tweets: @marypcbuk, @martinsfp, @ekovarski, @c7zero, @wired, @abazhaniuk, and @campuscodi

Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:

Android 10 launched on Wednesday, with the update available to all Pixel phones

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:

Zero-day exploit broker Zerodium increases the price of a “zero-click” exploit chain for Android to $2.5M, eclipsing iOS' top prize for the first time

More: Wired, Ars Technica, The Hacker News, 9to5Mac, iMore, Computer Business Review, VICE, AppleInsider, SecurityWeek, iPhone Hacks, and The Register

Tweets: @wired, @a_greenberg, @josephfcox, and @campuscodi

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

Firefox 69 arrives and now blocks third-party tracking cookies, fingerprinting, and cryptomining by default