Elkan Abramowitz, an attorney for American Media Inc. CEO David Pecker, told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos that the incident between Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and the National Enquirer does not amount to extortion or blackmail: "It's absolutely not a crime to ask someone to simply tell the truth."
Bob Woodward — author of "FEAR: Trump in the White House" and an associate editor of The Washington Post, where he has worked since 1971 — wrote an email of support on Friday to Post owner Jeff Bezos, following his Medium post defying the National Enquirer:
Jeff: Proud of you for stepping forward in such a difficult situation. Very gutsy and definitely right. This period reminds me of 1972-1974, perhaps Watergate Redux. So many assaults on constitutional government, common sense and privacy. Let's hope we all get it right — aggressive but careful and fair. Cheers and best, Bob Woodward
Spotify is buying two major podcasting companies, Gimlet and Anchor. Terms were not announced, but the Gimlet acquisition was reported to be worth some $230 million.
The big picture: In total, Spotify intends to spend as much as $500 million on acquisitions this year, to help it expand into "audio — not just music."
With its 2.3 billion active users, Facebook is entering the online dating market.
What's new: The service hasn't been widely released yet but Facebook will soon add the ability for users to share a date's location with friends, an idea generated from user feedback.
The West is hobbled by blind spots when it comes to China’s ambitions to dominate next-generation technologies like AI, robotics and quantum computing. This leads to bad assumptions — for example, that U.S. military superiority will carry over into the coming era of autonomous warfare.
But experts say its history makes the U.S. uniquely ill suited to navigate this seismic shift.
Apple told developers Thursday that they need to either stop using third party code that records what people do within their apps, or at the very least warn users they are being recorded. The statement followed a TechCrunch report that apps were using data-capturing code from a company called Glassbox.
Why it matters: This is the second time in as many weeks that Apple has been caught unawares as to how its platform was being misused.
/2019/02/08/1549644605899.gif?w=3840)
