Techmeme
September 26, 2019, 10:25 AM

Top News

Khari Johnson / VentureBeat:
Amazon announces a new line of Alexa-enabled wearables equipped with mics and speakers, including the $180 Echo Frames eye glasses and $130 Echo Loop ring  —  Amazon is rolling out a new line of wearables that work with Alexa today including the Echo Frames eyeglasses and the Echo Loop smart ring.
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Amazon unveils Echo Buds, $129.99 Alexa-enabled wireless earbuds that track steps, with claimed battery life of five hours and 20 hours with the charging case  —  Preorders start today, with shipping in time for the holidays  —  Amazon just announced its first foray into the headphone space …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Amazon unveils the $25 Echo Flex, an Echo smart plug with modular accessories that cost $15, like a motion sensor and night light, available for pre-order today  —  Alexa now has its own smartplug with modular accessories  —  Amazon is introducing another way to get Alexa into your home, the Echo Flex.
Dami Lee / The Verge:
Jeremy Horwitz / VentureBeat:
Oculus Quest will be updated in Nov. to be able to wire up directly to PCs, like the Rift, and in 2020 will get support for hand tracking, no controllers needed  —  Just before the annual VR/AR conference Oculus Connect 6, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a teaser video hinting …
Scott Stein / CNET:
Interview with Mark Zuckerberg on cracking social in VR, updates to the Quest headset, and how the future of Oculus' AR ambitions are grounded in its VR efforts  —  I'm led down a staircase by a small team of Facebook communications people, into a high-ceilinged, wide-open office …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook unveils Horizon, a VR massive multiplayer world coming in 2020, and will shut down existing VR platforms Facebook Spaces and Oculus Rooms on Oct. 25  —  Facebook today announced a virtual reality sandbox game where you can build your own environments and games, socialize with friends, and more.
Major Nelson / Xbox Live's Major Nelson:
Microsoft and Google announce Google Assistant support in English for the Xbox One in beta, with the ability to launch games, take screenshots, and more  —  Expanding Xbox Voice Capabilities with Google Assistant  —  This Week's Deals With Gold And Spotlight Sale Plus Publisher Sale
New York Times:
Report: Number of countries using political disinformation campaigns more than doubled to 70 since 2017; Facebook remains #1 social network for disinformation  —  In Vietnam, citizens were enlisted to post pro-government messages on their personal Facebook pages.
Natalie Gagliordi / ZDNet:
Dropbox starts rolling out Dropbox Spaces, shared team workspaces that connect things like files, tasks, and meetings, and other new features in its desktop app  —  Dropbox held its Work in Progress user conference on Wednesday where the company announced a host of new product experiences and features.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Amazon announces updates to Alexa: a new multilingual mode, celebrity voices for $0.99 each, starting with Samuel L. Jackson, frustration detection, and more  —  Alexa's gaining more human-like speech — and learning to understand multiple languages at once.
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
FTC sues Match Group, alleging Match.com connected daters with accounts known to be fake to get them to subscribe, leading to 499,691 new subscriptions  —  The FTC says more than 400,000 people subscribed because of these fraud messages  —  Match.com may have connected non-paying daters …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Mercury, which offers banking services to startups, raises 20M Series A led by CRV, source says at a valuation of $100M  —  Online-only banks have become a viable option for many people who would have traditionally used a brick-and-mortar bank but are now looking for more flexible …

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