10 things in tech you need to know today
Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Friday.
- Pinterest has reportedly filed for an IPO that could value the company at $12 billion. Pinterest has filed a confidential S-1 and has its eye on a June IPO, according to the Wall Street Journal.
- Goldman Sachs and Apple are reportedly partnering to launch a new iPhone-linked credit card, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The card will reportedly give customers additional features in Apple's wallet app and allow them to "set spending goals, track their rewards, and manage their balances."
- Google is ditching its mandatory arbitration policy after a mass protest by employees. Forced arbitration is a corporate practice whereby upon their hiring, employees waive their right to take some employer disputes to court, and instead must settle the matters privately.
- Employees keep dumping Facebook's free bikes in surrounding neighborhoods, and police are hassling local kids who try to ride them. It seems that in some cases Facebook employees are riding the bikes into town then leaving them, while in other cases they're being stolen from Facebook's offices, residents said.
- YouTube purged over 400 channels and millions of videos in response to rising concerns about child exploitation. A recent video from YouTuber Matt Watson exposed a "wormhole" of users making predatory comments on videos of children, where they traded contact information, and links to unlisted videos of child porn.
- The AI tech behind scary-real celebrity deepfakes is being used to create completely fictitious faces, cats, and Airbnb listings. A new crop of websites shows the disturbing potential of deepfake technology.
- Democratic presidential candidates are tearing into Google for the hidden Nest microphone, and calling for tech gadget "ingredients" labels. With Tuesday's news that Google failed to let consumers know about a hidden microphone in its Nest security devices, some Democratic candidates took the opportunity to voice their stances on consumer privacy.
- After topping Wall Street's estimates, Roku is in "a strong position" to take on Amazon and other rivals, says its CFO. Roku, which has transformed itself into an ad-based business, is in a prime position to compete in the free streaming video market, Steve Louden, its chief financial officer said.
- Facebook will remove its Onavo app from the Google Play store following backlash after a TechCrunch report on how code from Onavo was being used in a paid research app which collected teens' data. Facebook's research app was booted off Apple's App store, and the company has stopped recruiting for it, TechCrunch reports.
- Samsung's Galaxy Fold smartphone is meant to be shipping in 2 months, but the company hasn't actually shown a physical device to press or analysts yet. That suggests ongoing tweaks to the design and, maybe, a conviction that almost no one will buy it.
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