Techmeme
February 26, 2020, 3:20 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
At Apple's shareholder meeting, Tim Cook says it will open its online store in India this year, with physical stores in 2021, and addresses COVID-19 concerns  —  - CEO hints wearables sales $40 billion; equal to Marriott, Visa  — Company plans to open retail stores in India next year
Reuters:
Amal S / Reuters:
Google says it will spend $10B on offices and data centers in the US this year, focusing on 11 states including MA and NY, down from $13B in 2019  —  (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google said on Wednesday it would invest more than $10 billion in offices and data centers across the United States this year.
Charlie Savage / New York Times:
Declassified study: NSA system to analyze American domestic call and text logs cost $100M from 2015 to 2019 and yielded only one significant investigation  —  A disputed program that allowed the National Security Agency to gain access to logs of Americans' domestic calls and texts yielded …
Betsy Swan / The Daily Beast:
Clearview AI, provider of facial recognition search to police, says an intruder accessed its entire list of customers and how many searches they have conducted  —  Clearview AI, which contracts with law enforcement after reportedly scraping 3 billion images from the web, now says someone got …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
PayPal's looking into unauthorized transactions that appear to stem from its Google Pay integration; researcher says it may involve a bug reported but not fixed  —  All signs point to an attack exploiting PayPal's Google Pay integration. … Hackers have found a bug in PayPal's Google Pay integration …
Rob Price / Business Insider:
Facebook says it will now ban ads that promise to cure or prevent COVID-19, or attempt to “create a sense of urgency” about it  —  - Facebook is tightening up its rules on ads that reference the coronavirus outbreak.  — It is banning ads that mentioned it if they attempt to …
Daphne Leprince-Ringuet / ZDNet:
HackerOne reports hackers on its platform, which doubled to 600K in 2019, received $40M in bounties in 2019, $82M total since 2012, with 7 hackers passing $1M  —  The bug bounty platform doubled in size in just a year.  Its new report shows that ethical hacking is becoming a lucrative pastime.
Pranav Dixit / BuzzFeed News:
An in-depth look at what India's internet blackout looks like in Kashmir: social control with select media allowed, businesses crippled, the vulnerable isolated  —  Like the snowcapped mountains and grassy meadows, men with guns are part of the landscape in Kashmir.
Sophia Kunthara / Crunchbase News:
Connected fitness startup Tempo, which uses AI to tailor workouts, raises $17.5M Series A from Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, and others  —  The connected fitness space just keeps growing.  —  Subscribe to the Crunchbase Daily  —  Tempo is the latest company to join the pack …
Rebekah Valentine / GamesIndustry.biz:
Facebook has acquired Sanzaru Games, developer of Asgard's Wrath, for an undisclosed amount; the game studio will remain independent under Oculus Studios  —  Studio behind Asgard's Wrath to join Oculus Studios and continue VR development  —  Facebook has acquired Asgard's Wrath developer Sanzaru Games for an undisclosed amount.
Eric Newcomer / Bloomberg:
Sources: Invite Media reduced its assets before Google's $80M acquisition in 2010 to avoid requiring FTC approval, the kind of deal the FTC is now re-examining  —  The 2010 acquisition of Invite Media could come up for new scrutiny  —  Something unusual was underway in early 2010 at Invite Media …
Alfred Ng / CNET:
A look at US schools' growing use of mobile phone tracking tech from companies like Inpixon, using scanners to pick up Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cell signals  —  Teachers often lament that phones can be a distraction in classrooms.  Some governments have even banned phones outright in schools.
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Salesforce acquires Vlocity, a provider of cloud and mobile software built atop Salesforce, for $1.33B, and beats with Q4 revenue of $4.85B, up 35% YoY  —  - Keith Block became co-CEO alongside Marc Benioff less than two years ago.  — Salesforce announced the $1.33 billion acquisition of Vlocity in addition to the departure.
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Earlier Picks

Tom Krisher / NBC Bay Area:
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Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: