Techmeme
December 13, 2017, 8:10 PM

Top News

Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
Microsoft updates Bing with improved conversational search, Intelligent Image Search, ability to better surface different viewpoints, Reddit partnership, more  —  At a special AI-focused event today in San Francisco, Microsoft announced a number of feature updates to Bing that it hopes …
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
T-Mobile is acquiring Denver-based TV tech company Layer3 TV and says it will launch its own wireless TV service to compete with Comcast, others, in 2018  —  T-Mobile says it will launch its own TV service in 2018, expanding its competitive focus beyond the U.S. wireless giants to target major cable …
Nate Raymond / Reuters:
Unsealed court documents show three men have plead guilty to creating the 2016 Mirai botnet that disrupted access to major internet platforms  —  (Reuters) - A former Rutgers University student and two other men have agreed to plead guilty to computer crimes related to the creation and use …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Patreon CEO Jack Conte says the company will “press pause” on planned change to service fee for each pledge, set to start Dec. 18, after uproar from creators  —  Patreon has called off plans to add a service fee to patrons' pledges, a proposed update that angered many users.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google says it's bringing Assistant to tablets running Android 6.0+ and phones running Android 5.0+ in US, UK, India, Australia, and elsewhere  —  The Google Assistant, Google's take on Siri, Cortana and Alexa without the approachable name, has long been available on most modern phones and tablets.
Josh Lipton / CNBC:
Apple awards $390M from its $1B Advanced Manufacturing Fund to Finisar, which makes laser chips used in iPhone X and AirPods for depth and proximity sensing  —  - Apple is investing $390 million into Finisar, which makes chips used by Apple products for depth and proximity sensing.
Jason Del Rey / Recode:
Target says it plans to acquire grocery delivery platform Shipt for $550M in cash and will run it as independent unit; Shipt has 170 staff and has raised $65M  —  Target will offer same-day delivery from half of its stores by summer.  —  Another domino just fell in the wake of the Amazon-Whole Foods acquisition.
Sahil Patel / Digiday:
Sources: Facebook plans to end program that paid ~300 publishers and other content creators to produce videos for News Feed  —  Multiple publisher sources said Facebook no longer plans to pay publishers and other video makers to produce videos for the news feed.
Michael Liedtke / Associated Press:
Federal judge unseals letter confirming that the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation connected to Uber/Waymo allegations  —  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A recent letter from the U.S. Attorney's office confirms that the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation connected …
More: Axios and Ars Technica
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
Google says it's opening an artificial intelligence research center in Beijing, its first in China  —  Google has officially announced that it is opening an AI center in Beijing, China.  —  The confirmation comes after months of speculation fueled by a major push to hire AI talent inside the country.
David D. Kirkpatrick / New York Times:

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
How remote support can make your Christmas stress-free  —  As Christmas approaches, the air fills with the anticipation of joy, family gatherings, and gift-giving.  While the season brings immense happiness …
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
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.
Techmeme Ride Home:
(BNS) Calvin And Hobbes - With Daniel Kibblesmith
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 8:10 PM ET, December 13, 2017.

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

Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
Jeff Benjamin / 9to5Mac: