General
Texas indicts Cody Wilson on multiple counts of sexual assault of a minor
Nathan Mattise, Ars Technica
More than three months have passed since a warrant (PDF) initially went out for Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson’s arrest. That document detailed Wilson’s alleged sexual assault against a female “child younger than 17 years of age” whom he reportedly solicited through the website SugarDaddyMeet.com.
Elon Musk is sticking with SpaceX board member Steve Jurvetson, shows new SEC filing
Connie Loizos, TechCrunch
Several weeks ago, the WSJ reported that SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company, was set to raise $500 million from earlier shareholders and the Scottish money management firm Baillie Gifford & Co. in a bid to help get its internet service business off the ground. The Hawthorne, Calif. company still hasn’t announced the round, but it nevertheless made things official today, filing with the SEC more details about the fundraise.
Offices grow ‘brains’ as companies seek to attract smarter workers
Caroline Copley, Reuters
Employees will not need a key to get into the office of the future when it opens in Berlin this year, featuring ample meeting space, plenty of copy machines always stocked with paper along with high-quality air processed to maximize worker health and minimize sick time. Their smartphones will help guide them around their new workplace — and they may need the assistance because they will not have permanent desks.
Technology Transformation Services Acting Chief Leaves for Private Sector
Jack Corrigan, Nextgov
The acting chief of the General Services Administration’s technology innovation wing plans to leave the agency for a position in the private sector. Kelly Olson, acting director of the agency’s Technology Transformation Services and deputy commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, announced to GSA staff that her last day will be Jan. 18.
Stocks Rally Before Trade Talks; Safe Havens Slip: Markets Wrap
Yakob Peterseil, Bloomberg
Stocks climbed across Europe and Asia and U.S. equity futures pointed to a stronger open as the world’s two largest economies scheduled fresh trade negotiations next week. Havens slipped, with Treasuries falling and the yen weakening after Thursday’s surge.
Intellectual Property and Antitrust
AT&T completes sale of data center business to Brookfield
Mike Robuck, FierceTelecom
AT&T announced that all of its customer contracts, employees supporting the co-location operations, fixed assets, leases and the related facilities have been transferred over to Brookfield. With the deal in hand, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners now has 18 data centers in the U.S. and 13 globally.
Telecom, Wireless and TV
Verizon and Tegna resolve dispute, restoring CBS to Washington region. But a slew of blackouts nationwide remain
Tony Romm and Brian Fung, The Washington Post
Verizon Fios customers on Thursday regained access to key broadcast channels, including WUSA the CBS station in the nation’s capital, that had been blacked out for days because of a contract dispute with a major media company, Tegna. Verizon and Tegna said in a statement that they had reached “a multiyear carriage agreement” that restores stations including WVEC, a local ABC station in Norfolk, and WGRZ, the NBC station in Buffalo, ending an outage that had affected what analysts estimated was about 1 million Verizon customers nationwide.
FCC Shuts Down
Caitlin Fairchild, Nextgov
The Federal Communications Commission will shut down the majority of its operations Thursday due to the ongoing partial government shutdown. Most agency activities will cease and the majority of employees will be furloughed, according to the FCC’s notice posted on Wednesday.
Huawei Demotes Workers for Tweeting From An iPhone
Yuan Gao, Bloomberg
Huawei Technologies Co. can get really touchy about its phones. This week, the fast-rising Chinese company demoted and cut the pay of two employees held responsible for a New Year’s greeting tweeted from Huawei’s official account — with an iPhone.
FCC Plans Vote on Excising EEO Midterm Report
John Eggerton, Broadcasting and Cable
Before sending nonessential staffers home for the government shutdown Thursday (Jan. 3), the FCC released its tentative agenda for the Jan. 30 public meeting, which included a report and order (final vote) on the proposal to no longer require broadcasters to file midterm EEO reports. Ordinarily that meeting agenda would not have been released until Jan. 9, but the chairman’s office is getting what it knows it wants to vote on to the public before the shutdown started affecting the commission, which it did as of Thursday.
Mobile Technology and Social Media
Apple’s Troubles Extend Beyond China
Jay Greene and Yoko Kubota, The Wall Street Journal
Apple Inc. chief Tim Cook blamed China’s accelerating economic slowdown for stumbling iPhone sales that hurt its global revenue in the past quarter. The company’s problems run deeper in China and extend to markets beyond.
Facebook Begins New Year in Fixer-Upper Mode
Deepa Seetharaman and Georgia Wells, The Wall Street Journal
One year ago Friday, Mark Zuckerberg set his sights on “fixing” Facebook Inc. That remains very much a work in progress.
Google moves closer to creating ‘Minority Report’-style sensors for controlling devices with hand gestures
Peter Holley, The Washington Post
Nearly two decades after its release, “Minority Report” still seems to be as prescient as the film’s eerie crime-fighting “precogs,” offering a clarifying vision of the future that continues to manifest in the real world. Though it debuted way back in 2002, the film highlighted technologies like driverless cars, hyper-targeted advertising and robotic insects — all of which exist in 2019.
Apple just lost a Facebook: Market value decline since peak exceeds value of nearly any US company
Michael Sheetz, CNBC
In only three months, Apple has lost $452 billion in market capitalization, including tens of billions on Thursday as the tech giant’s stock sank further. Apple shares have fallen by 39.1 percent since Oct. 3, when the stock hit a 52-week high of $233.47 a share.
Square Names Activision Blizzard’s Ahuja as Finance Chief
Selina Wang, Bloomberg
Square Inc. named Activision Blizzard Inc. executive Amrita Ahuja as chief financial officer, replacing Sarah Friar, who stepped down from her role as Jack Dorsey’s No. 2 at the digital-payments company last month. Ahuja, 39, spent more than eight years at video-game maker Activision Blizzard, most recently serving as CFO of the Blizzard Entertainment unit, which has developed popular titles including World of Warcraft and Overwatch.
Cybersecurity and Privacy
German politicians targeted in cyber attack
Guy Chazan, Financial Times
Hackers have leaked the personal data of hundreds of German politicians in what is being described as one of the country’s worst ever cyber attacks. MPs’ mobile numbers and addresses, as well as their emails, bills and credit card information, were published on the internet, as were photos of their personal IDs.
House Democrats’ first bill has an eye on election security
Joe Uchill, Axios
H.R. 1, the gargantuan first bill the new House Democratic majority will unveil Friday, is an anti-corruption grab bag that most prominently tackles campaign finance, sexual harassment and voting rights. But election cybersecurity will quietly play a major role in the bill, too.
Cyber researcher pulls public talk on hacking Apple’s Face ID
Jim Finkle and Stephen Nellis, Reuters
A cyber security researcher canceled a hacking conference briefing on how he said he could crack biometric facial recognition on Apple Inc iPhones, at the request of his employer, which called the work “misleading.” The prospect that Face ID could be defeated is troubling because it is used to lock down functions on tens of millions of iPhones from banking and healthcare apps to emails, text messages and photos.
Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives
The iPhone Canary
The Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal
Investors have been searching for signs of how President Trump’s trade standoff with China is affecting the U.S. economy. Judging by the market reaction to slumping iPhone sales in China, many fear Apple is the canary in the global economy.
Is This the End of the Age of Apple?
Kara Swisher, The New York Times
If anything, MedMen, on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, Calif., looks just like an Apple Store. It’s decked out with blond wood tables on which a range of products are artfully displayed — the Puffco Peak portable vaporizer, an electronic Dosist vape pen, the latest issue of Ember magazine and, of course, so much weed delivered in an astonishing variety of ways, from tinctures to gummy bears to cookies to just plain joints.
Instead of right and left, our politics are increasingly being defined by the rooted and the mobile
Megan McArdle, The Washington Post
Ours is an uneasy age. Social mores are changing so fast that people in their early 30s have started muttering about the “kids these days.”
Tim Cook Needs Better Ideas Than This for Apple
Shira Ovide, Bloomberg
Toward the end of Apple Inc.’s stunning disclosure about its worse-than-expected sales, the company’s boss suggests a tactic it will use to counter surprisingly meek demand for its smartphones. I hope Apple has better ideas than this.
Research Reports
OVERRULED: Containing a Potentially Destructive Adversary
Geoff Ackerman et al., FireEye Inc.
FireEye assesses APT33 may be behind a series of intrusions and attempted intrusions within the engineering industry. Public reporting indicates this activity may be related to recent destructive attacks.
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