Techmeme
October 18, 2017, 7:10 PM

Top News

James Vincent / The Verge:
DeepMind's new Go-playing AI wins 90% of time against version of AlphaGo that beat world champ, trained solely by reinforcement learning without human games  —  The company's latest AlphaGo AI learned superhuman skills by playing itself over and over  —  Google's AI subsidiary DeepMind …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Facebook and Google helped Secure America Now, a conservative nonprofit advocacy group, target ads for an anti-refugee campaign in swing states  —  The big tech companies worked closely with Secure America Now to target an audience the group felt could be swayed by the message.
Kevin Collier / BuzzFeed:
Twitter took 11 months after being notified by GOP to shut down a fake Twitter account with 136K+ followers run by a Russian troll farm, posing as Tennessee GOP  —  The account was one of hundreds created by Russia's Internet Research Agency and drew 136,000 followers by tweeting divisive messages …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Facebook officially starts rolling out its discovery-focused “Explore Feed” on desktop and mobile  —  Facebook's tests of an alternative News Feed dubbed the “Explore” feed have progressed to a full rollout, the company now confirms.  Previously available on mobile devices …
Karissa Bell / Mashable:
Catalin Cimpanu / BleepingComputer.com:
Mozilla, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, and W3C agree to unify cross-browser web documentation under Mozilla's MDN portal, rebranded as MDN Web Docs  —  Mozilla, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, and the W3C have agreed today to unify all their documentation sites under one single roof, on Mozilla's MDN portal.
Alex Webb / Bloomberg:
Apple partners with General Electric to develop industrial mobile apps for managing machinery, factories, and power plants  —  Businesses want same experiences as consumers, executive says  —  Apple makes GE's Predix its preferred industrial platform  —  General Electric Co. is teaming …
Matthew Lynley / TechCrunch:
Blue Apron to lay off 6%, or more than 250 employees after going public earlier this year  —  As Blue Apron approaches its next earnings report in a couple of weeks, the company said Wednesday that it is laying off 6 percent of its staff as part of “a company-wide realignment of personnel to support its strategic priorities.”
More: Recode, Investis, and Axios
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Adobe turns Lightroom CC into a new cloud photography service, providing 1TB of storage with support for RAW images, and introduces new pricing plans  —  Adobe's annual Adobe MAX conference kicks off today, and the company is introducing a whole slew of updates to its Creative Cloud platform.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
UiPath:
Introducing the UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation  —  UiPath's new platform empowers enterprises to experience the full power of AI to transform industries
Zoho:
Automate recurring activities with Zoho One's RPA addition  —  Robotic Process Automation (RPA) automates manual and routine tasks for businesses by using digital robots that replicate human behaviour.
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

Grit:
HubSpot CEO on the Future of SaaS, AI, & Leading Through Change
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
Inside Devin: The world's first autonomous AI engineer that's set to write 50% of its company's code by end of year | Scott Wu (CEO and co-founder of Cognition)
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.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Omnibus Week Of 04/28
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Hard Fork:
The Dangers of A.I. Flattery + Kevin Meets the Orb + Group Chat Chat
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.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Josh Kopelman from First Round Capital
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.

More News

Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:

Earlier Picks

Pranav Dixit / BuzzFeed:
Brian Stelter / CNNMoney:
Devindra Hardawar / Engadget: