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.

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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: