10 things in tech you need to know today

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Thursday.

1. Microsoft on Wednesday reported fiscal first-quarter results that topped Wall Street’s expectations, despite a marked slowdown in sales growth from its Azure cloud-computing service. Revenue from the company’s Azure cloud-computing service grew at a 76% annual rate, down from 89% the prior quarter.
   
2. Apple CEO Tim Cook launched an attack on Wednesday on tech companies such as Facebook and Google that he said hoarded “industrial” amounts of personal data. “Our own information, from the everyday to the deeply personal, is being weaponized against us with military efficiency,” Cook said.
3. Despite being warned that his cell phone calls are not secure, President Trump refuses to stop making certain calls from his iPhone. Anonymous White House officials told The New York Times they were disclosing the president’s cell phone habits because they’ve become increasingly frustrated with his lackadaisical tendencies regarding electronic security.
4. Tesla reported a surprise third-quarter profit of $2.90 per share on Wednesday. Shares spiked as much as 10% in after-hours trading following the release.
5. Leap Motion, a company that specializes in developing VR and AR software and hardware, has lost its VP of design, Keiichi Matsuda. In addition to Matsuda’s Wednesday departure, multiple employees told Business Insider that the company has lost its flagship office.
6. Snap hired two execs from Amazon and The Huffington Post after its chief strategy officer quit. The company hired Amazon’s head of global advertising sales Jeremi Gorman to be its chief business officer and Jared Grusd is joining as chief strategy officer, looking after “content, global strategy, partnerships, and corporate development.”
7. A new study from University of Chicago and Rice University researchers shows an uptick in fatal car crashes after Uber and Lyft launched in a city. Fatal traffic deaths hit their lowest number in half a century in 2010, but rose in the years after ride-hailing services arrived.
8. Facebook removed 8.7 million images of child nudity with a new machine learning software. The machine learning tool identifies images that contain both nudity and a child, helping to ban photos that show minors in a sexualized context.
9. Apple and Samsung have been fined over $5 million each by an Italian watchdog group for intentionally slowing down older phones. Apple was handed an additional €5 million fine for failing to give customers clear information about how to replace handset batteries.
10. Indian music channel T-Series is about to overtake PewDiePie as the most subscribed channel on YouTube. Research firm Tubular Labs has predicted that T-Series will overtake PewDiePie’s 67 million subscribers by Monday, October 29.

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