Techmeme
March 28, 2017, 2:50 PM

Top News

Facebook:
Facebook's main app gets Snapchat-like Stories atop the News Feed, Direct for sharing ephemeral images and video with friends, and in-app camera effects  —  We want to make it fast, fun and easy for people to share creative photos and videos with whomever they choose, for however long they choose …
Kurt Wagner / Recode:
Facebook copied Snapchat a fourth time, and now all its apps look the same  —  Facebook doesn't seem concerned with giving each of its core services a unique identity.  —  Facebook is copying Snapchat again: Today it launched Stories, the 24-hour photo and video montages that ultimately disappear, inside of its core Facebook app.
Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch:
Uber's first diversity report shows workforce as 36.1% female worldwide with 15.4% female engineers, 49.8% white, 30.9% Asian, 8.8% black, 5.6% Hispanic overall  —  Uber just released its highly-anticipated, first-ever diversity report detailing the demographics of its employees as of this month.
Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:
Tinder unveils Tinder Online, a web-optimized version currently being tested in emerging markets with plans to launch everywhere “soon”  —  Tinder is today introducing a new way for users to access the platform with the launch of Tinder Online, a web-optimized version of the dating app …
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Amazon debuts AmazonFresh Pickup, a drive-in service delivering groceries straight to the trunks of customers' cars, in beta at two Seattle locations  —  Amazon's grocery efforts just got a new level of convenience for shoppers: AmazonFresh Pickup, a drive-in grocery delivery right to your car's trunk, launching in beta on Tuesday.
Chris O'Brien / VentureBeat:
Google Home and Google Wifi will be available in the UK on April 6 for £129, the first market outside the US for both  —  Google announced today that its Home and Wifi devices will be available soon in the U.K., the first international markets for the gadgets.
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
AWS launches Amazon Connect, a tool for call centers that uses its Lex speech recognition and AI; Salesforce says it's integrating Einstein service with Connect  —  Amazon Web Services just unveiled a new service for running call centers, dubbed Amazon Connect, leveraging the same technology used …
Kurt Wagner / Recode:
Twitter will start selling pre-roll ads ahead of Periscope videos  —  Twitter is looking for some more video ad dollars.  —  Twitter is going to start making some money from Periscope, its livestreaming video service.  —  The company announced on Tuesday that it will begin selling pre-roll video ads …
Wall Street Journal:
Tencent buys 5% passive stake in Tesla for $1.8B, making it the fifth-largest shareholder in the automaker  —  China's most valuable company, buys 5% stake in Elon Musk's electric-vehicle maker ahead of ambitious launch of $35,000 sedan  —  Tencent Holdings Ltd. bought a 5% stake in Tesla Inc. …
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Payments company Square launches in the UK, its first European market and fifth globally  —  Mobile payments company Square is finally landing in Europe with the news today that it's now open for U.K.-based business owners.  —  This launch represents the fifth market for Square, after the U.S. …
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
IKEA's Trådfri system for smart home lighting goes live on Swedish website, available in Swedish stores on March 31 starting at about $85  —  Smart lights on a budget  —  Ikea is finally getting into the home automation game with its own system for smart lighting.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple releases watchOS 3.2 with Theater Mode, an easily accessible option to disable “Raise to Wake”, and SiriKit, which will allow users to give Siri commands  —  Apple today released a new software update for the Apple Watch, upgrading watchOS 3.1.3 to watchOS 3.2. watchOS 3.2 …
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
Maureen Dowd / Vanity Fair:
Interviews with Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Ray Kurzweil, others on AI in coming decades, its regulation, and possible implementations  —  Elon Musk is famous for his futuristic gambles, but Silicon Valley's latest rush to embrace artificial intelligence scares him.  And he thinks you should be frightened too.
Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
CIO challenge 5: Can we find an effective solution that also minimizes operational costs?  —  Welcome to the next and final installment of our CIO series!  After what feels like a thousand cups of coffee …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 11/21 - What The DOJ Wants Google To Do
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:50 PM ET, March 28, 2017.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Gigi Sohn / The Verge:
Florin Bodnarescu / Neowin: