10 things in tech you need to know today
Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Friday.
1. Microsoft is reportedly being investigated by US authorities for potential bribery and corruption over software sales in Hungary. The Department of Justice and SEC are probing how the company sold software like Word and Excel to firms who then sold them on to Hungarian government agencies, the Washington Post reports.
2. Leaked documents and interviews show Facebook's struggle to moderate two billion accounts. A large-scale Motherboard investigation dove into the heart of Facebook's moderation struggles.
3. Lisa Brennan-Jobs revealed more details from her memoir about life with her father Steve Jobs. A new memoir titled "Small Fry," written by Steve Jobs' daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, provides a brutal window into the Apple cofounder's relationship with his child.
4. Facebook has hired a new CMO to try and repair its image after its scandal-filled year. Facebook has hired a new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Antonio Lucio who previously held the same role at HP, and was at Visa and Pepsi before that.
5. Sony is relaunching the "Aibo" robot dog released in 1999, and it says the new version uses 'deep learning' and has cloud-based memories. The "Aibo" was originally discontinued in 2006, this is an updated model of the robot dog companion, which saw a release in Japan last year.
6. A ton of Tesla employees are getting poached by Apple, once dubbed the "Tesla Graveyard" by Elon Musk. Tesla and Apple compete for the same talent in fields like software, batteries, supply chain, and mechanical engineering.
7. It looks like Microsoft is planning a new 'Xbox All Access' monthly subscription which includes a console. According to Windows Central and The Verge, the subscription would include an Xbox console, Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass subscriptions - and it would be cheaper than buying each item individually.
8. Russian trolls were discovered to be "spreading discord" about vaccinations online. Researchers at George Washington University discovered the Russian accounts, which disseminated both pro- and anti-vaccine content.
9. The wood pellet salesman who spent more than three years as a fugitive after being charged with trying to defraud Mark Zuckerberg out of 50% of Facebook has been arrested in Ecuador. The New York man may be extradited.
10. Apple is making a TV show out of the book that inspired Elon Musk to go to space. The series will be based on "Foundation," a classic 1951 novel by Issac Asimov, which is considered a cornerstone of science-fiction.
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