Techmeme
October 31, 2018, 6:40 PM

Top News

James Vincent / The Verge:
iRobot partners with Google and will share spatial data from Roombas to help improve Google's smart home experience by mapping rooms  —  The two companies are working together to leverage spatial data generated by iRobot's robovacs  —  Google and iRobot have announced they're working together …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google introduces “Emoji Minis” in Gboard for Android and iOS, which uses machine learning to create customizable emoji-sized stickers based on users' selfies  —  Last summer, Google introduced its own take on Bitmoji with the launch of “Mini” stickers in its keyboard app, Gboard …
Business Insider:
Sources: Apple held multiple acquisition talks with Leap Motion, beginning in 2013 and most recently in spring 2018, when Apple made an offer between $30M-$50M  —  - Apple has offered to buy augmented reality startup Leap Motion multiple times, most recently in the spring of 2018.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Twitter's spam reporting tool now lets users specify more details, like if the account is fake, using unrelated hashtags, or sharing malicious links  —  Twitter is adding more nuance to its spam reporting tools, the company announced today.  Instead of simply flagging a tweet as posting spam …
Peter Cao / 9to5Mac:
Apple has pulled watchOS 5.1 update after reports that it had bricked some Apple Watches  —  [Update: Apple has now pulled watchOS 5.1.  Users who haven't updated should refrain from doing so if it was downloaded, but not yet installed.]  —  While many users are disappointed with the lack …
Virginia Hughes / BuzzFeed News:
Researchers examining 135 popular kids apps on Android and iOS find 88% of paid and 100% of free apps often have manipulative and distracting ads  —  Popular apps for young kids, especially those available in Google's app store, are teeming with advertisements that distract them from play …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Mark Zuckerberg has been summoned to appear before an “international grand committee” of Canadian and UK MPs to discuss fake news on November 27  —  Two separate parliamentary committees, in the UK and Canada, have issued an unprecedented international joint summons for Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg to appear before them.
Khari Johnson / VentureBeat:
Amazon says Alexa can now give information about federal and gubernatorial elections and that it is working with AP and Ballotpedia for poll times and results  —  Amazon today announced a series of updates to Alexa's knowledge base so the intelligent assistant can deliver helpful information ahead of …
Monica Nickelsburg / GeekWire:
Lime pursues car sharing in Seattle, where rentable electric scooters are banned, and says it plans to add electric vehicles as another option to its app “soon”  —  Lime wants to add cars to its Seattle mobility fleet, expanding beyond the bright green, rentable bikes the company currently operates in the city.
More: CNET and Fortune
Rob Price / Business Insider:
Facebook says it is banning the far-right Proud Boys and co-founder Gavin McInnes from Facebook and Instagram after violent NY attack on protesters in October  —  - Facebook is banning accounts and groups associated with The Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group linked to political violence in the US.
Will Sommer / The Daily Beast:
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
Sources: after canceling Rift 2, a “complete redesign”, Oculus now pursuing a more modest Rift update, possibly called Rift S, to release as early as next year  —  Facebook's virtual reality arm may soon find itself in the unfamiliar position of playing catch-up with hardware competitors.

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Earlier Picks

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