Techmeme
December 18, 2019, 10:30 AM

Top News

Todd Haselton / CNBC:
Apple, Amazon, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance form Project Connected Home over IP, a partnership to create a new smart home networking standard  —  - Amazon, Apple, Google and the Zigbee Alliance announced a new partnership.  — It's called Project Connected Home over IP …
New York Times:
The defining moments of tech in the 2010s, including the Arab Spring and unveiling of the iPad, as recalled by Zuckerberg, Snowden, Phil Schiller, and others  —  An oral history of the 2010s  —  When the decade began, tech meant promise — cars that could drive themselves, social networks that could take down dictators.
Bloomberg:
Current and ex-employees of SoftBank's Vision Fund describe an environment of sycophancy towards Son, harassment, rivalries, and a culture of recklessness  —  Masayoshi Son's venture capital firm is famous for making outsize bets on tech startups.  It has also been described as an environment of sycophancy and harassment.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
After a cyber attack, Canadian medical lab LifeLabs paid a ransom to recover the stolen data of 15M+ customers, which included login info and test results  —  Data breach took place in early November, and hackers also gained access to 85,000 laboratory test results.
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Facebook pilots a program in the US to use part-time contracted “community reviewers” to expedite the fact-checking process and aid its fact-checking partners  —  Facebook is creating a new pilot program in the U.S. that will leverage part-time contracted “community reviewers” to expedite its fact-checking process.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Chris Prentice / Reuters:
SEC charges former Palo Alto Networks IT administrator and four accomplices with insider trading from 2015 to 2018; the traders made over $7M in illegal profits  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. authorities on Tuesday said they have charged a former IT administrator and four friends involved …
CNN:
The Epilepsy Foundation files criminal complaint against 30+ unidentified Twitter users for coordinated attack of seizure-inducing videos to its feed last month  —  (CNN)Attackers sent videos of flashing and strobing lights to people on Twitter last month as part of a cyberattack which deliberately targeted people with epilepsy.
Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed News:
Ex-Facebook staffers on how Facebook's focus on growth metrics in performance reviews prodded staff to game the system and ignore other impacts of their work  —  Facebook often uses its vast size as an excuse for its failures.  Meanwhile, it's ordering employees to make it bigger.
Joseph Cox / VICE:
Ring device testing shows it lacks safeguards that would deter credential stuffing and brute force attacks, making 2FA a key part of securing accounts  —  It's not so much being watched.  It's that I don't really know if I'm being watched or not.  —  From across the other side of the world …
Daniel Cooper / Engadget:
Googler says she was fired for sending pop-ups on labor rights via modified internal browser plugin; Google: she “abused privileged access” in altering the tool  —  Google stands accused of firing a fifth employee who was suspected of attempting to organize a labor union at the search giant.

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:
WhatsApp messages for events: Zoho Backstage enhancements  —  Event communication involves more than just sending updates to attendees.  In an event's lifecycle, organizers coordinate with purchasers, speakers …
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 10:30 AM ET, December 18, 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.

More News

Andrew Higgins / New York Times:

Earlier Picks

Sara Fischer / Axios:
The Information:
iFixit News:
Wall Street Journal:
Danny Palmer / ZDNet: