The Weekly Roundup Podcast #122: Russian Facebook, killing Bixby & more

Welcome to The Weekly Roundup, our podcast discussing the latest tech trends, innovation and news from the last few days.

This week, Andy Walker hosts Julia Breakey and Stephen Timm in studio.

We kick off the episode by laying out what we know about the cryptocurrency mining issue that saw our site temporarily disabled this week.

We then move on to a Ventureburn story about ICOs and the emerging popularity of the cryptocurrency scene in South Africa.

Over on Memeburn, Julia talks how Facebook enabled the Russian tampering of the 2016 US election. Receiving over US$100 000 in ad sales from the propaganda, the platform can’t deny the hand it played in the election of US President Donald Trump.

Finally, Andy talks the death (or coma) of the Bixby button, which Samsung has finally admitted was not the best idea. Though remapping is still not available, Samsung users now have the ability to switch it off.

What are we watching, reading, playing: Stephen has just finished a story on supposed South African startup success Zapper, which may not be owned by CEO David de Villiers.

Julia had a chance to watch Jake Gyllenhaal’s Stronger this week, which she calls beautifully nuanced. Her full review is up here.

Andy has begun a rewatch of Air Crash Investigation, which he adores. He’s also raring to go for the Overwatch free weekend starting Friday.

For all this and more, catch us on this week’s episode of The Weekly Roundup:

Recommended Reading:

• Today at Memeburn: why the site was temporarily down
• China’s ban of ICOs unlikely to effect long-term bitcoin sales says Luno founder
• Russian Facebook pages may have organised pro-Trump rallies
• Facebook may have earned $150k from US election-hacking ads
• Thanks Samsung: you can now disable the Bixby button on the Galaxy S8