Techmeme
September 21, 2018, 6:25 AM

Top News

GeekWire:
A roundup of all the major announcements from Amazon on Thursday, from a new microwave to a subwoofer to new Alexa skills and developer tools  —  Microwave.  Subwoofer.  Smart plug.  In-car device.  —  Those are just a handful of the new devices Amazon debuted on Thursday …
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Amazon unveils Echo Auto, a $49.99 dash mounted in-car accessory that puts Alexa in any car with an aux jack and gives directions using Waze  —  As Amazon noted at today's event, the company has already been working with a number of car companies bring Alexa to vehicles.
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
CNN:
Google confirms the personal Gmail accounts of an unspecified number of US senators and Senate staff have been targeted by foreign government hackers  —  Foreign hackers target Senators' Gmail accounts  —  (CNN)The personal Gmail accounts of an unspecified number of US senators and Senate staff …
Ashlee Clark Thompson / CNET:
Amazon launches a $59.99 AmazonBasics-branded microwave that works with Alexa-enabled speakers, has built-in WiFi, and an Amazon Dash Replenishment  —  Amazon will begin to sell its own brand of Wi-Fi-connected microwaves that will respond to voice commands, the company announced Thursday at its headquarters in Seattle.
Laura Stevens / Wall Street Journal:
Sara Salinas / CNBC:
Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya appears unconcerned about the string of exits from the firm and says it will no longer raise outside capital  —  - Chamath Palihapitiya told his employees he would be diverting much of the “carry” — the portion of investment returns traditionally given …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Instagram app code shows new potential features like adding hashtags without including them in captions, geofenced posts, quiz stickers, and video tagging  —  Geofenced sharing, Quiz stickers, Stories Highlight stickers, and a separate interface for adding hashtags to posts are amongst a slew …
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Instagram is testing a way for users to reshare posts from other accounts to their own feeds; obtained screenshots suggest the feature is early in development  —  Will it revive the feed — or break it?  —  After years of resistance, Instagram is now testing a way for you to reshare posts from other accounts to your own feed.
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Adobe says it is acquiring the marketing automation company Marketo for $4.75B  —  A week ago rumors were flying that Adobe would be buying Marketo, and lo and behold it announced today that it was acquiring the marketing automation company for $4.75 billion.
Timothy J. Seppala / Engadget:
PlayStation Now announces subscribers can download PS4 and remastered PS2 games, as the service becomes more like Xbox Game Pass  —  The biggest hindrance to Sony's PlayStation Now streaming service is lag.  Because the game isn't stored locally, whatever device you're playing on has to send …
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft says Skype is coming to Amazon Alexa devices later this year, letting Alexa users make outgoing voice and video calls, accept incoming calls, and more  —  Microsoft and Amazon are working together to bring Skype calling to Alexa-powered devices, which brings into question, again, where Microsoft is going with Cortana.
Bloomberg:
Facebook says that for future political campaigns, it will pull back from dedicated on-site support like the kind it provided to Trump's 2016 campaign  —  - Social network has been questioned about its help in 2016  — Company wants candidate organizations to use ad website

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