Samsung just bought a conversational AI startup named Fluenty. “The acquisition, which was led by the South Korean tech giant's mobile business, will allow the company to integrate Fluenty's services to its own AI platform, Bixby,” ZDNet reports. Based in South Korea, Fluenty “was launched in the US in 2015 and South Korea last year.”

Danny Westneat at The Seattle Times reviewed some of the plans submitted by more than 200 municipalities to shelter Amazon’s second headquarters -- and he was appalled by what he found. For example, “Chicago has offered to let Amazon pocket $1.32 billion in income taxes paid by its own workers,” he writes. “This is truly perverse … Called a personal income-tax diversion, the workers must still pay the full taxes, but instead of the state getting the money to use for schools, roads or whatever, Amazon would get to keep it all instead.”  

Amazon just debuted Sumerian, a service to help developers create virtual reality, augmented reality, and 3D apps for online use. “Sumerian can be used to quickly develop these kinds of applications to run on suitable browsers, as well as mobile devices, head-mounted displays, and digital signage,” ZDNet reports.

Fast Company considers Facebook’s ongoing effort to monetize Messenger under the direction of David Marcus, Facebook’s vice president of messaging products. “Much of Marcus’s vision relies on chatbots, which can automate replies within Messenger,” FC writes. “Brand interactions, in a messaging context, perform better when they are personalized -- taking into account, for example, a user’s order history or color preferences.” Adds FC: “Thanks to AI … chatbots are now getting better at personalizing on a mass scale.”

In one small town in Indiana, people’s obsession with Pokémon Go is estimated to have cost upwards of $25 million in injuries and damage, and loss of two lives, according to new analyst from two Purdue University economists. “If you scale this to cover the entire US, it would suggest that $2 billion to $7.3 billion were lost,” The Verge estimates.

AppLovin -- the U.S. mobile marketing firm -- just restructured a $1.4 billion plan to sell itself to Chinese buyout firm Orient Hontai Capital into a debt investment, Reuters reports. “The move illustrates how companies have been looking for ways to get their deals past the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a U.S. government panel that scrutinizes transactions for potential national security threats,” Reuters writes.

The Russian government is reportedly threatening to retaliate if Google lowers the search rankings of websites like Sputnik and Russia Today. “It is obvious that we will defend our media,” the Interfax news service cited Alexander Zharov, Russia’s chief media regulator, as saying. Notes Reuters: “The Russian government funds Sputnik and Russia Today, or RT.”

Apple just bought a Canadian startup that specializes in AR headsets for about $350 million, TechCrunch reports. “The deal is significant because while we have seen reports and rumors about Apple’s interest in AR hardware, the company has been very tight-lipped and generally is very secretive about completely new, future products,” TC writes.

Google is working hard to rid Google News of Russian misinformation, according to Eric Schmidt, executive chariman of parent company Alphabet. “We’re well aware of this one, and we’re working on detecting this kind of scenario you’re describing and deranking those kinds of sites,” Schmidt tells Motherboard. Yet, Schmidt “provided little in the way of concrete plans to lessen [Russians’] reach on his digital properties,” Motherboard added.

Android-powered phones are collecting data about users’ location and sending it back to Google whether or not they’re connected to the Web, Quartz has learned. “Since the beginning of 2017, Android phones have been collecting the addresses of nearby cellular towers -- even when location services are disabled -- and sending that data back to Google,” it reports. “The result is that Google … has access to data about individuals’ locations and their movements that go far beyond a reasonable consumer expectation of privacy.”