Techmeme
May 18, 2019, 12:30 AM

Top News

Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Spotify to start testing Car Thing, a voice-controlled smart assistant device that connects to your car and phone over bluetooth, with some Premium users in US  —  To learn how people consume audio in their car  —  Spotify will begin publicly testing its first hardware today …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft announces Minecraft Earth, a real-world AR version of Minecraft, available in closed beta on iOS and Android this summer  —  Alex Kipman, Microsoft's HoloLens and Kinect creator, is always enthusiastic about the future of computing.  As he stands in front of me inside …
CNBC:
Google has a “Purchases” page that shows your purchases based on receipts you have in your Gmail inbox; Google says only you can view your purchases  —  KEY POINTS  — Google saves years of information on purchases you've made, even outside Google, and pulls this information from Gmail.
Bradley Tusk / Financial Times:
The key value of Uber was its relentless innovation and promise to change the world, which the board forgot when it focused on stability in replacing Kalanick  —  When Uber hired Dara Khosrowshahi in 2017, the company board was solving the wrong problem.  —  The ride-hailing app was in the midst …
New York Times:
Profile of Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer, who admits AI alone may not be enough to deal with toxic content and chokes up when discussing the issue  —  Facebook has heralded artificial intelligence as a solution to its toxic content problems.  Mike Schroepfer, its chief technology officer, says it won't solve everything.
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Sheryl Sandberg: there is concern in US “with the size and power of Chinese companies, and the realization that those companies are not going to be broken up”  —  KEY POINTS  — Sandberg said breaking up Facebook does not address the underlying issues people have with tech companies.
Arjun Panchadar / Reuters:
Hewlett Packard Enterprise to buy supercomputer maker Cray in a deal valued at $1.3B, or $35 per share, which represents a premium of 17.4% to Cray's last close  —  (Reuters) - Supercomputer manufacturer Cray Inc said on Friday it would be bought by Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co in a deal valued at about $1.30 billion, net of cash.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Salesforce says faulty script deployment gave users access to all of their company's Salesforce data, forcing it to shut down much of its infrastructure Friday  —  Faulty production script gave users access to all their company's Salesforce data.  —  Salesforce is going through …
Kate Conger / New York Times:
Profile of Brian Hofer, an anti-surveillance activist who drafted San Francisco's facial recognition ban and over two dozen other privacy laws in California  —  SAN FRANCISCO — As San Francisco's Board of Supervisors prepared to vote Tuesday on an ordinance forbidding city agencies …
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Techdirt settles suit by Shiva Ayyadurai, who claimed to invent email; no money exchanges hands; Techdirt to link to an Ayyadurai statement on related articles  —  Click Here to Support Techdirt  —  It's possible that some of you saw the news earlier this week that the legal dispute …
Michael Hytha / Bloomberg:
CDN provider Fastly closes up 50% on its first day of trading after raising $180M in its IPO, is now valued at about $2.2B  —  Software provider Fastly Inc. closed its trading debut Friday up 50% after raising $180 million in its U.S. initial public offering.
Selina Wang / Bloomberg:
A look at Twitter in Japan, its second-largest market, raking in $136M in Q1 revenue, where the service has mass appeal and many users have multiple accounts  —  Rising ad dollars from Japan has bolstered the company's total revenue  —  When Yu Sasamoto joined Twitter Inc. as head of Japan in 2014 …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft and Sony announce a strategic partnership to explore development of future cloud solutions in Microsoft Azure for game and content-streaming services  —  An unusual partnership  —  Microsoft and Sony are announcing an unusual partnership today, allowing the two rivals to partner on cloud-based gaming services.
Chloe Taylor / CNBC:
Deliveroo announces that Amazon is leading a $575M funding round for the UK-based food delivery service, bringing the total raised to $1.53B  —  KEY POINTS  — Deliveroo is a British company that allows users to order food deliveries from nearby restaurants using an app.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini  —  Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator.  Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
Codegen:
Ship with AI: The Future of Coding is Here  —  Use natural language in Slack to trigger real PRs, docs, dashboards, infra & more.  Codegen connects GitHub, Linear, Notion, and beyond.
Zoho:
Build floodgates, but with filters.  —  This is part one of our four-part blog series on turning candidate feedback into smarter hiring decisions—one hiring phase at a time using the Triple-A feedback loop.It's easy …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:
Hard Fork Live, Part 2: Patrick Collison of Stripe + Kathryn Zealand of Skip + Listener Questions
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Lenny's Podcast:
I've run 75+ businesses. Here's why you're probably chasing the wrong idea. | Andrew Wilkinson (co‑founder of Tiny)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Great Chat:
AI is killing the summer slowdown
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Techmeme Ride Home:
In Meta v. OpenAI, Who's Desperate And Who's Scared?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Black Mirror's Charlie Brooker on the problem with tech - and people
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Spotlight On:
Freshworks CEO Dennis Woodside on translating bold visions into operational excellence
A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.
Subscribe to Spotlight On.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:30 AM ET, May 18, 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.

More News

Earlier Picks

South China Morning Post:
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Julian Chokkattu / Digital Trends:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Dan Seifert / The Verge: