Techmeme
October 31, 2018, 6:45 PM

Top News

James Vincent / The Verge:
iRobot partners with Google and will share spatial data from Roombas to help improve Google's smart home experience by mapping rooms  —  The two companies are working together to leverage spatial data generated by iRobot's robovacs  —  Google and iRobot have announced they're working together …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google introduces “Emoji Minis” in Gboard for Android and iOS, which uses machine learning to create customizable emoji-sized stickers based on users' selfies  —  Last summer, Google introduced its own take on Bitmoji with the launch of “Mini” stickers in its keyboard app, Gboard …
Business Insider:
Sources: Apple held multiple acquisition talks with Leap Motion, beginning in 2013 and most recently in spring 2018, when Apple made an offer between $30M-$50M  —  - Apple has offered to buy augmented reality startup Leap Motion multiple times, most recently in the spring of 2018.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Twitter's spam reporting tool now lets users specify more details, like if the account is fake, using unrelated hashtags, or sharing malicious links  —  Twitter is adding more nuance to its spam reporting tools, the company announced today.  Instead of simply flagging a tweet as posting spam …
Peter Cao / 9to5Mac:
Apple has pulled watchOS 5.1 update after reports that it had bricked some Apple Watches  —  [Update: Apple has now pulled watchOS 5.1.  Users who haven't updated should refrain from doing so if it was downloaded, but not yet installed.]  —  While many users are disappointed with the lack …
Virginia Hughes / BuzzFeed News:
Researchers examining 135 popular kids apps on Android and iOS find 88% of paid and 100% of free apps often have manipulative and distracting ads  —  Popular apps for young kids, especially those available in Google's app store, are teeming with advertisements that distract them from play …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Mark Zuckerberg has been summoned to appear before an “international grand committee” of Canadian and UK MPs to discuss fake news on November 27  —  Two separate parliamentary committees, in the UK and Canada, have issued an unprecedented international joint summons for Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg to appear before them.
Monica Nickelsburg / GeekWire:
Lime pursues car sharing in Seattle, where rentable electric scooters are banned, and says it plans to add electric vehicles as another option to its app “soon”  —  Lime wants to add cars to its Seattle mobility fleet, expanding beyond the bright green, rentable bikes the company currently operates in the city.
More: CNET and Fortune
Rob Price / Business Insider:
Facebook says it is banning the far-right Proud Boys and co-founder Gavin McInnes from Facebook and Instagram after violent NY attack on protesters in October  —  - Facebook is banning accounts and groups associated with The Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group linked to political violence in the US.
Will Sommer / The Daily Beast:
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
Sources: after canceling Rift 2, a “complete redesign”, Oculus now pursuing a more modest Rift update, possibly called Rift S, to release as early as next year  —  Facebook's virtual reality arm may soon find itself in the unfamiliar position of playing catch-up with hardware competitors.

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.
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.
Zoho:
CIO challenge 5: Can we find an effective solution that also minimizes operational costs?  —  Welcome to the next and final installment of our CIO series!  After what feels like a thousand cups of coffee …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 11/21 - What The DOJ Wants Google To Do
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 6:45 PM ET, October 31, 2018.

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

Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Saheli Roy Choudhury / CNBC:

Earlier Picks

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Ina Fried / Axios:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Carolyn Said / San Francisco Chronicle:
Chris Welch / The Verge: