Techmeme
August 12, 2017, 9:00 AM

Top News

James Damore / Wall Street Journal:
James Damore blames Google's intense echo chamber, exacerbated by outside reactions, for his firing  —  James Damore says that his good-faith effort to discuss differences between men and women in tech couldn't be tolerated in the company's ‘ideological echo chamber.’
Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:
“This Is Just Like GamerGate”: How The Pro-Trump Media Turned James Damore Into A Hero Overnight  —  A week ago, James Damore was anonymous.  Now, the Google engineer who lost his job after he wrote a viral anti-diversity screed has become an icon of the alt-right, with more than 40,000 Twitter followers …
Paul Mozur / New York Times:
Source: Facebook approved the stealthy release of app similar to Moments in China via a local company that appears to be closely linked to Facebook  —  SHANGHAI — Facebook and many of its apps have been blocked in China for years.  To change that, Mark Zuckerberg has made a big point …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
SoundCloud closes $169.5M Series F funding round led by Raine Group and Temasek to stay afloat; former Vimeo CEO Kerry Trainor replaces Alex Ljung as CEO  —  SoundCloud has just closed the necessary funding round to keep the struggling music service afloat.
Dan Primack / Axios:
Shervin Pishevar and two other Uber investors demand that Benchmark, which sued Travis Kalanick for fraud, give up its Uber board seat and sell its Uber shares  —  A group of Uber investors has asked that venture capital firm Benchmark step down from the company's board of directors, Axios has learned.
Blair Hanley Frank / VentureBeat:
OpenAI bot has defeated three top professional Dota 2 players in 1v1 play over the last week  —  An artificial intelligence has beaten one of the world's top Dota 2 players in single combat today.  Danil Ishutin, better known by his gaming handle “Dendi,” threw in the towel in the middle …
JC Torres / SlashGear:
Twitch launches desktop app with support for voice and video calls on Windows and macOS  —  Although YouTube is the household name for streaming videos in general, Twitch is still considered the granddaddy of the niche, but also lucrative, game streaming market.
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Researchers show how malware encoded into physical strands of DNA can be used to infect computers running gene-sequencing software  —  WHEN BIOLOGISTS SYNTHESIZE DNA, they take pains not to create or spread a dangerous stretch of genetic code that could be used to create a toxin or, worse, an infectious disease.
Már Másson Maack / The Next Web:
European org urges Apple to support Advanced Mobile Location on iPhones, which gives more accurate locations of emergency calls and is supported on Android  —  Despite being relatively easy, Apple keeps ignoring requests to enable a feature called Advanced Mobile Location (AML) in iOS.

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Earlier Picks

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Edward C. Baig / USA Today: