Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times:
Vevo says its 2017 revenue reached $650M, up 30% YoY; it broke even in 2017 and expects to be profitable in early 2018 — Vevo, the music video company owned by a group of leading record labels, increased its revenues by 30 per cent in 2017 thanks to swelling global audiences for high-budget pop star videos.
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Stanford AI car-image project analyzed 50M Google Street View images and location data to find geographic trends in race, voting behavior, wealth, and more — What vehicle is most strongly associated with Republican voting districts? Extended-cab pickup trucks. For Democratic districts? Sedans.
ProPublica:
Study shows Facebook's hate speech rules are unevenly enforced, with the company agreeing its censors made mistakes on 22 of 49 posts submitted for explanation — We asked Facebook about its handling of 49 posts that might be deemed offensive. The company acknowledged that its content reviewers had made the wrong call on 22 of them.
Newley Purnell / Wall Street Journal:
Alibaba's UC Browser, with 430M+ users worldwide, leads in emerging markets with low-end smartphones, with 51% of India's mobile browser market vs Chrome's 30% — Alibaba's UC Browser is dominating in emerging markets with lower-end smartphones — JAKARTA, Indonesia …
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Smart lock maker Otto, which unveiled its first product in August 2017, suspends operations — Otto showed the world its digital lock in August. Four months later, the company has suspended operations. Hardware is hard. It's a cliche for a reason. — The company made the decision …
Hiroko Tabuchi / New York Times:
Groups skeptical of climate change are gaming Google's largely automated ad systems to promote misleading claims that reject established climate science — Groups that reject established climate science can use the search engine's advertising business to their advantage …
Alex Hern / The Guardian:
The chair of UK's fake news inquiry committee has given Facebook and Twitter until January 18 to hand over info about Russian disinformation campaigns — Chair of parliamentary committee gives firms a deadline to hand over information about Russian misinformation campaigns
BBC:
Germany starts enforcing law under which social networks will face fines of up to €50M if they fail to remove hate speech, fake news, and illegal material — Germany is set to start enforcing a law that demands social media sites move quickly to remove hate speech, fake news and illegal material.
Freedom to Tinker:
How third-party scripts on websites exploit a flaw in browsers' built-in password managers to identify and track users — In this second installment of the No Boundaries series, we show how a long-known vulnerability in browsers' built-in password managers is abused by third-party scripts for tracking on more than a thousand sites.
Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Verge:
Niche online communities and media grew in 2017, through Patreon, TinyLetter, “finstagrams”, and more as people looked for alternatives to Facebook and Twitter — Why tiny, weird online communities made a comeback in 2017 — Americans got tired of big social media in 2017.
Kyle Samani / Forbes:
Ripple may be a great blockchain-based tech for banks, but the valuation of its XRP token reflects the unlikely hope it becomes a global reserve cryptocurrency — In August, the hedge I cofounded, Multicoin Capital, published an analysis of XRP, the native token of the Ripple network.
Fred Wilson / AVC:
Three interrelated macro themes dominated this year in tech: the breakout of crypto, beginning of the end of white male dominance, and the backlash against tech — As has become my practice, I celebrate the end of a year and the start of a new one here at AVC with back to back posts focusing …
Ben Kentish / The Independent:
Iran blocks access to Instagram and Telegram apps amid anti-government protests — Authorities respond after demonstrations leave at least two dead — Live: New Year's Eve celebrations kick off around the world — Coutinho move from Liverpool to Barca accidentally confirmed by Nike
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Analysis of code from the top 10K websites on Alexa finds that 30.5% employ anti-ad blocking measures, many of which are hidden from the sites' visitors — It's no secret that ad blockers are putting a dent in advertising-based business models on the web. This has produced a range of reactions …
Peter S. Goodman / New York Times:
How Sweden, Norway, Finland prepare for AI-driven automation: employer-financed placement programs for those laid off, big public spending on social safety nets — In a world full of anxiety about the potential job-destroying rise of automation, Sweden is well placed to embrace technology while limiting human costs.
Anita Balakrishnan / CNBC:
US blocks sale of money transfer service MoneyGram to Alibaba's Ant Financial; Ant Financial will pay a $30M termination fee for the deal breakup — - The U.S. government failed to approve a multimillion-dollar merger between MoneyGram and Ant Financial, an affiliate of Alibaba.
Davey Alba / BuzzFeed:
Logan Paul debacle highlights YouTube's content moderation problem, as experts say Paul's video isn't something AI moderation could catch on its own — Logan Paul attends “The Thinning” Meet & Greet during the 2016 New York Comic Con. — YouTube has a content crisis — again.
Alice Lloyd George / TechCrunch:
Q&A with CEO of Zipline, the Sequoia and a16z-backed startup delivering 20% of national blood supply via drones in Rwanda, as it expands operations to Tanzania — Alice Lloyd George — It's that time of year again. Sleigh bells overhead and our jolly, bearded benefactor wafting gifts …
Jacky Wong / Wall Street Journal:
Report: China's mobile games industry 2017 revenue hits ~$17.6B, more than 2x $7.4B 2015 revenue; avg. monthly revenue/paying user is $26.5, 9% higher than US — The mobile games industry has been growing fast, but slowing population growth is just one reason why the sector's best days may already be past.
The Register:
Security issues arising from design flaw in Intel CPUs will need OS fix that will slow down Windows, Linux, macOS machines; Intel to provide more details soon — Other OSes will need an update, performance hits loom — A fundamental design flaw in Intel's processor chips has forced …
Timothy B. Lee / Ars Technica:
Bipartisan group of six senators introduces Secure Elections Act, which aims to eliminate paperless voting machines and promote routine election audits in US — The bill reads like a computer security expert's wish list. — A bipartisan group of six senators has introduced legislation …
iFixit:
iMac Pro teardown: RAM, dual SSDs, CPU are modular, but GPU is soldered in place and many key components aren't accessible, earning a 3/10 repairability score — Tools Featured in this Teardown — Introduction — We dropped $4,999 to get our hands on the hot new space gray Magic Mouse …
Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:
Spotify faces another copyright lawsuit, from Wixen Music, which represents many prominent artists; suit suggests up to 21% of Spotify songs are unlicensed — Wixen Music Publishing files a new lawsuit that also covers music from Rage Against the Machine, The Doors, Steely Dan and many others.
Edvard Pettersson / Bloomberg:
Federal judge in Los Angeles rules for Airbnb in suit brought by Aimco, one of largest landlords in US, which had claimed Airbnb enabled tenants to break leases — Startup ruled not responsible for ‘unlawful’ listings by hosts — Landlord complained of noisy tourists at high-end complexes
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Apple buys buddybuild, an app development service with about 40 employees based in Vancouver, and will roll its product into Xcode — Apple continues to ramp up its efforts to court developers by making it easier to create and iterate their apps for its platforms.
Martin Matishak / Politico:
After Equifax breach compromised the identities of 145M Americans, there was anger in Congress, but the hearings and proposals have led to no real change — The aftermath of the data breach played out like a familiar script: White-hot bipartisan outrage, then hearings and proposals that went nowhere.
Brad Sams / Thurrott.com:
Microsoft and Amazon miss integration deadline for Cortana and Alexa; Amazon says they expect to roll it out “soon” — Last year, in August, Microsoft and Amazon announced a partnership that would allow the two digital assistants to talk to each other.
Andrew Wallenstein / Variety:
Google and Facebook's dominance in digital ads and Netflix and Amazon's massive programming budgets are forcing big media mergers and streaming ventures — There's no debating the #MeToo movement was the biggest story in the entertainment industry in 2017.
Ian Cutress / AnandTech:
Details emerge on Intel's Indian website about its first “Intel with Radeon RX Vega Graphics” processor: Core i7-8809G with 3.1 GHz Base, 100W target TDP — To begin the year, Intel's Indian website has published a small number of details regarding Intel's first ‘Intel with Radeon RX Vega Graphics’ processor.
Rob Copeland / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Thiel's Founders Fund bought $15-$20M in bitcoin, now worth hundreds of millions, spread across multiple funds, one of which began investing in mid-'17 — Founders Fund, the venture-capital firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, has bought large sums of bitcoin that are now worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
