Techmeme
October 3, 2018, 10:20 PM

Top News

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google launches a redesign for its Assistant app on Android and iOS, including introducing larger visuals and controls for smart home devices  —  Google today is launching a major visual redesign of its Assistant experience on phones.  While the original vision of the Assistant focused mostly on voice …
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
LG V40 ThinQ review: 6.4" QuadHD display, 6GB of RAM, Snapdragon 845, available for preorder now for $900+; five camera system is versatile but not high-quality  —  The V40 gives you a camera bag full of lenses in one device  —  All too often, when we evaluate smartphone cameras, we are looking at incremental improvements.
Chris Velazco / Engadget:
LG announces Watch W7 with a 1.2" display, mechanical hands, Android Wear, Snapdragon 2100 chipset, and a watch-only mode, available Oct. 14 for $449  —  Android Wear recently got a substantial overhaul, and now it needs some fancy new hardware to run on.  That's where LG's new Watch W7 comes in.
Brian Fung / Washington Post:
US government ran the first nationwide test of its wireless emergency alert system at 2:18PM ET today, with a message going to all US wireless users  —  Beginning at 2:18 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday, Americans across the country were interrupted by an urgent notification on their cellphones.
Stephen Shankland / CNET:
Wi-Fi Alliance rebrands 802.11n as Wi-Fi 4, 802.11ac as Wi-Fi 5, and the upcoming 802.11ax as Wi-Fi 6  —  Quick quiz: Which is better, 802.11n or 802.11ac?  —  The answer, if you're familiar with Wi-Fi standards coming from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, is 802.11ac …
Spencer Soper / Bloomberg:
Amazon is eliminating monthly bonuses and stock awards for US warehouse workers after raising wage to $15/hour; sources say bonuses could be hundreds per month  —  - Some long-time workers say the changes make their raises less  — Amazon says all workers will see overall compensation increase
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Hortonworks and Cloudera announce all-stock merger valuing the new company at $5.2B; the two companies helped commercialize Hadoop open-source big data software  —  Cloudera stock jumped 17 percent on Wednesday after it announced an all-stock merger of equals with competitor Hortonworks.
Ryan Gilliam / Polygon:
Blizzard co-founder Michael Morhaime steps down as president, will remain an advisor, is succeeded by World of Warcraft executive producer J. Allen Brack  —  World of Warcraft executive producer J. Allen Brack is new president  —  Mike Morhaime, co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment …
Karl Bode / Motherboard:
Report: after years of steady decline, BitTorrent usage is once again growing, thanks to the fragmentation of streaming services with exclusive content  —  BitTorrent usage has bounced back because there's too many streaming services, and too much exclusive content.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Facebook briefed DHS officials last week and select lawmakers this week about its massive breach to help quell potential backlash in Washington  —  Social-media company has stepped up its cooperation with Washington as it faces the increasing possibility of more regulation
Owen Williams / Charged Tech Blog:
After years of trying, and as Apple increasingly drops the ball, Microsoft's hardware event showed a coherent and appealing lineup of PCs, desktops, and tablets  —  At a low-key event held in a New York City warehouse, Microsoft unveiled its next iterations in the Surface lineup.
Laura Stevens / Wall Street Journal:
In cease-and-desist letter, eBay alleges that ~50 Amazon sales representatives worldwide used eBay's messaging system to try and poach sellers from its platform  —  In a cease-and-desist letter, EBay alleges Amazon sales representatives sent more than 1,000 messages to sellers on its platform
Tim Fernholz / Quartz:
GM and Honda partner to develop autonomous vehicles, with Honda investing $750M in GM's Cruise Automation subsidiary and contributing $2B towards development  —  Japan is bringing big money to self-driving car partnerships: General Motors has struck a new alliance with Honda to produce …
Craig Timberg / Washington Post:
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Amazon unveils Fire TV stick with 4K, Dolby Atmos, and HDR10+ support, with a new Alexa Voice Remote, for $50, available for preorder now, ships October 31  —  After years of offering 4K playback on its higher-end Fire TV devices, Amazon is ready to bring that extra resolution to its most affordable hardware.

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Zeynep Tufekci / New York Times:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat: