|
February 4, 2019, 5:50 PM
|
Mediagazer
memeorandum
WeSmirchTop News
| Alphabet: |
Alphabet Q4: revenue of $39.3B, up 22% YoY, net income of $8.9B, CPC down 29%, and paid clicks on Google properties up 66% YoY; stock down 3% — MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - February 4, 2019 - Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL) today announced financial results for the quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2018.
More:
Wall Street Journal, The Verge, Android Authority, ABC News, ZDNet, Business Insider, CNBC, and Investor's Business Daily
Tweets: @levynews, @backlon, @fredericl, @lexnfx, @lexnfx, and @martyswant
| Sara Salinas / CNBC: |
Alphabet's traffic acquisition costs hit $7.44B for Q4, up from $6.58B in Q3, and ad revenue grew 20% YoY to $32.6B, amid competition from rivals like Amazon — - Traffic acquisition costs as a percent of advertising revenue came in at 23 percent, matching analyst estimates and falling right in line with previous quarters.| Abner Li / 9to5Google: |
Alphabet's “Other Bets”, which includes Waymo, Verily, Fiber and others, had Q4 revenue of $154M, with operating losses rising to $1.3B, up from $732M in Q3 — Alphabet today announced its Q4 2018 earnings to wrap up the last fiscal year. Including the busy holiday season … | Mark Zuckerberg: |
On Facebook's 15th anniversary, Zuckerberg says it will spend more on safety and security in 2019 than it had revenue at its IPO, pans critics' “negative” focus — Fifteen years ago today, I launched the first version of the Facebook website from my college dorm.
More:
Recode, Business Insider, CNET, and Boing Boing
Tweets: @anandwrites, @sarahfrier, @rmac18, @anandwrites, @alexhern, @facebook, @dseetharaman, @rmac18, @sarahfrier, and @alexstamos
| Vox: |
Tweets: @pessimism, @haleyoverland, @mikhlin, @antirobust, @thatguybg, @seanilling, @ezraklein, @antoniogm, @ambi24, @mattyglesias, @moskov, @chadfelixg, @karaswisher, and @alexstamos
| Lauren Feiner / CNBC: |
Slack says it has submitted a confidential draft IPO filing with the SEC — Slack confidentially filed to go public, according to a press release published Monday. — Slack is one of a number of tech IPOs expected in 2019, including Uber, Lyft and Airbnb. — Here is the full release from Slack:
More:
Bloomberg, Slack, TechCrunch, SiliconANGLE, The Hill, TechCrunch, New York Times, PYMNTS.com, GeekWire, CNET, Neowin, VentureBeat, Forbes, Axios, Fortune, Mashable, and Slashdot
Tweets: @ashleyfeinberg, @t_blom, and @kidney_boy
| Janko Roettgers / Variety: |
Avi Bar-Zeev, veteran AR/VR pioneer and Hololens co-inventor, left Apple's AR team this past month; he joined the company in June 2016 — AR/VR pioneer and Hololens co-inventor Avi Bar-Zeev left Apple last month, Variety has learned. Bar-Zeev had been working on Apple's augmented reality headset …
More:
MacRumors, Engadget, 9to5Mac, Neowin, Cult of Mac, MSPoweruser, iPhone Hacks, and Road to VR. Thanks:@jank0
| Dieter Bohn / The Verge: |
Google announces Live Transcribe, a near-real time transcriber, and Sound Amplifier; both are Pixel 3 accessibility features and available as apps on Play store — It's also releasing a Sound Amplifier feature — both only on Android — Google is announcing two new features for Android phones today …
More:
The Keyword, Android Police, Google AI Blog, PhoneArena, CNET, Lifehacker, Thurrott, WinBuzzer, VentureBeat, 9to5Google, Engadget, TechCrunch, SlashGear, Android Authority, and Axios. Tweets: @googleeurope
| Alex Hern / The Guardian: |
After the death of a British teen, Instagram head announces plans to debut “sensitivity screens” to blur images of self-harm unless users click to reveal them — Facebook-owned app promises changes to better shield users from self-harm images — Instagram will introduce …
More:
Telegraph, The Hill, BBC, CNET, TechCrunch, The Verge, and Boing Boing
Tweets: @tamaleaver and @matthfield
| Alex Heath / Cheddar: |
Sources: Facebook hires the team behind Chainspace, a startup building tech for decentralized “smart contracts”, its first blockchain acquisition — Facebook has made its first acquisition in the blockchain space. — The social network has quietly hired the team behind Chainspace …
More:
The Block, CoinDesk, BREAKERMAG, and Cointelegraph
| Erik Schatzker / Bloomberg: |
How a US-based manufacturer of an “indestructible” smartphone screen helped FBI in its Huawei sting after the Chinese giant allegedly tried to steal its secrets — The sample looked like an ordinary piece of glass, 4 inches square and transparent on both sides.
More:
Mashable, Business Wire, BGR, Gizmodo, Engadget, Android Authority, CNBC, and CNET
Tweets: @paulmozur, @niubi, @waltmossberg, @bw, @b_fung, and @davidjoachim
| Jeff John Roberts / Fortune: |
Crypto exchange Kraken acquires British trading startup Crypto Facilities in a deal worth at least $100M, says it is raising $100M from its largest customers — The cryptocurrency exchange Kraken says it has paid “nine figures” to acquire Crypto Facilities, a British trading firm that specializes in derivatives.
More:
Kraken Blog, CoinDesk, The Block, Financial Post, CryptoSlate, Bitsonline, FinSMEs, Ethereum World News, NewsBTC, NullTX, TechCrunch, and CryptoGlobe. Tweets: @jonnymoetrades. Thanks:@jeffjohnroberts
| Abner Li / 9to5Google: |
Instant Tethering, launched in 2017 to let Chrome OS easily share a Pixel's cell connection, is coming to dozens of non-Google Chrome OS and Android devices — Google introduced Instant Tethering in 2017 to let Chrome OS devices automatically share an Android phone's cellular connection.
More:
CNET, ZDNet, The Verge, TechCrunch, XDA Developers, Thurrott, Android Police, Android Authority, VentureBeat, Engadget, Droid Life, and About Chromebooks
| Julia Fioretti / Reuters: |
Tencent-backed Maoyan Entertainment, China's biggest movie-ticketing platform by sales, fell 1.1% in its Hong Kong debut after raising $250M in its IPO — HONG KONG (Reuters) - Tencent-backed Maoyan Entertainment, China's biggest movie-ticketing platform by sales, fell 1.1 percent …
More:
TechCrunch, South China Morning Post, Variety, and Tech in Asia
| Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
Microsoft acquires DataSense, a data management platform used by schools across the US, and the team behind it from BrightBytes for an undisclosed sum — One of Microsoft's oldest and biggest verticals for its Azure cloud business has been education, and today it announced an acquisition …
More:
SiliconANGLE, Microsoft EDU, BrightBytes, GeekWire, ZDNet, and VentureBeat
| Jessica Guynn / USA Today: |
Filing: Amazon names Rosalind Brewer, Starbucks' COO and board director, to its all-white board, making her the first black director for the company — SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon.com has named its first black director after facing growing pressure to diversify the all-white board overseeing … | Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: |
EU report: tech firms are now assessing 89% of flagged content within 24 hours and 72% of such illegal hate speech is removed, up from 40% and 28% in 2016 — In its latest monitoring report of a voluntary Code of Conduct on illegal hate speech, which platforms including Facebook …
More:
EU Press Room, CNET, Computer Business Review, New Europe, and MIT Technology Review. Tweets: @danbraun79
| Nat Levy / GeekWire: |
New filing: Amazon spent $1.65B on acquisitions in 2018, headlined by Ring and PillPack deals — Amazon spent $1.65 billion on acquisitions in 2018, according to a new regulatory filing from the company. That makes it the second most acquisitive year in the company's history by dollar volume … | New York Times: |
The Instagram egg account, with 10M+ followers, was started by an advertising professional; a Hulu ad based on the egg debuted Sunday promoting mental health — He works in advertising. — When Chris Godfrey learned in early January that the record for “likes” on an Instagram post was held …
More:
Fortune, Mashable, ClickZ, TechCrunch, Socialnomics, CNBC, CNET, Adweek, USA Today, Tubefilter, Vox, BuzzFeed News, Digital Trends, TIME, Business Insider, and iPhone in Canada Blog
Tweets: @pardesoteric, @jbillinson, @nytimes, and @willsommer
| Kris Holt / Engadget: |
Periscope says users can now add up to three guests as voice call-ins to a stream, “like a talkshow”, and is working on letting the guests share video — Periscope is paving the way for broadcasters to host talk shows and invite viewers to go beyond comments and hearts by joining the conversation with their voices.
More:
Android Police, Periscope, Digital Trends, The Verge, CNET, TechCrunch, and Mashable
| Kate Clark / TechCrunch: |
Interview with Bird CEO Travis VanderZanden on scooter startup copycats, unit economics, safety, Bird Platform, electric bikes, seasonality, and more — Bird's electric scooters were on full display at the Upfront Summit in Malibu last week, a two-day event that brings together the likes of Hollywood …
Tweets: @maestromobile
| Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica: |
US court overturns FCC's attempt to deny tribal residents broadband subsidies, says FCC failed to provide evidence and ignored harm of limiting broadband access — Court: FCC failed to provide evidence and ignored harm to broadband access. — A federal appeals court has overturned Ajit Pai's attempt … | Yuji Nakamura / Bloomberg: |
Amid a relatively weak-looking lineup of games for 2019, Sony reports operating income in games fell 14% YoY to ~$666M for the holiday quarter; stock drops 8%+ — Sony Corp. reported weaker profits in the PlayStation business and cut its annual revenue forecast, triggering the steepest share decline in almost three and a half years.
More:
Gamasutra
| Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: |
Aurora Solar, which wants to use a combination of lidar data and computer vision to design and streamline solar panel installation, raises $20M Series A — Despite recent setbacks, solar remains a bright spot in the often wobbly renewable energy sector. In the U.S., the solar market …
More:
PR Newswire, TechCrunch, and FinSMEs
| Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times: |
India proposes new rules for apps like TikTok with user generated content and 5M+ users, requires a local office, proactive removal of content, more — Bid to make platforms take responsibility for all content posted to their sites — The Indian government is targeting the Chinese social media apps …
Tweets: @pratikpoddar and @manan
Sponsor Posts
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.
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 6: 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 …
CIO challenge 6: 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.
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy — Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more — We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics. Download reports immediately for just $100.
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more — We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics. Download reports immediately for just $100.Who's Hiring In Tech?
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 11/15 - Crypto Ascendant
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 5:50 PM ET, February 4, 2019.
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.
From Mediagazer
Michael Gold / New York Times:John Koblin / New York Times:
Katie Kilkenny / The Hollywood Reporter:
Upcoming Tech Events
Earlier Picks
| Jez Corden / Windows Central: |
More:
GDC SF 2019, Ars Technica, Business Insider, PCWorld, GeekWire, Engadget, Eurogamer.net, The Verge, Fortune, [H]ardOCP, Gamasutra, 9to5Google, USgamer.net, OnMSFT.com, Cult of Mac, TechSpot, USA Today, Mashable, iPhone Hacks, MacRumors, Geek.com, VG247, XDA Developers, Thurrott, Tom's Guide, TouchArcade, Fossbytes, KnowTechie, VentureBeat, WinBuzzer, Android Police, Twinfinite, Forbes, Telecoms.com, Softpedia News, Pocket-lint, Polygon, Firstpost, GamesIndustry.biz, GameSpot, Inquirer, iPhone in Canada Blog, Android Authority, Neowin, SlashGear, Digital Trends, destructoid, IGN, MSPoweruser, CNET, and bit-tech.net
Tweets: @avers_g4gmedia, @scully1888, and @benbajarin