Techmeme
December 17, 2018, 9:45 AM

Top News

TMZ:
Colin Kroll, a co-founder of Vine and the CEO and co-founder of HQ Trivia, has died at 34; police source says a drug overdose is suspected  —  Colin Kroll, the CEO and co-founder of HQ Trivia, has died of an apparent drug overdose ... TMZ has learned.  —  Law enforcement sources tell TMZ …
Washington Post:
Leaked report prepared for Senate analyzes Russian disinformation that supported Trump across millions of posts on YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, more  —  The report, a draft of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is the first to study the millions of posts provided …
Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:
In a major real-estate expansion in New York City, Google says it will invest $1B+ in a new 1.7M square foot campus in Google Hudson Square in Manhattan  —  Search giant joins Amazon, Apple in growing outside the West Coast; addition of 7,000 jobs a ‘conservative estimate’
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Facebook Messenger adds native support for looping Boomerang videos, a Selfie mode with automatic background blur, and AR stickers for photos and videos  —  Stickers are also getting AR support  —  Facebook today announced a host of new camera features for its Messenger app.
Siobhan Roberts / New York Times:
Profile of Stanford computer scientist Donald Knuth, author of The Art of Computer Programming, a Bible of its field with more than one million copies in print  —  Donald Knuth, master of algorithms, reflects on 50 years of his opus-in-progress, “The Art of Computer Programming.”
Hilary Potkewitz / Wall Street Journal:
How Calm has overtaken Headspace, which dominated the meditation app category, after winning the App Store's 2017 iPhone App of the Year award  —  A pair of apps preach relaxation to millions of customers—but still badly want to beat each other  —  The two smartphone apps taking meditation …
Devjyot Ghoshal / Quartz:
Inside Grab's efforts to map roads in 100 cities across Southeast Asia by next year; Grab's mapping team has grown to 250, of which 100 are based in India  —  In 2017, many months before its merger with Uber made it Southeast Asia's biggest ride-hailing app, Grab realized it had a “rendezvous” problem.
Wall Street Journal:
To increase profits in its retail business, Amazon is asking brands with cheap but heavy or bulky items to change packaging and ship from their own warehouses  —  Online giant pushes for changes in product packaging, quantities to improve earnings  —  Amazon.com Inc. AMZN -4.01% …
Khari Johnson / VentureBeat:
AI Index Report for 2018 shows global growth of the field, a sharp rise in papers published from China, and an increase in VC funding of AI startups  —  The AI Index 2018 report is out, and if you're interested in AI enough to read this newsletter, you really should read the report through for yourself.
Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
Test shows that Android phones like LG G7 ThinQ, OnePlus 6, and Samsung Galaxy S9 and Note 8 can be unlocked via facial recognition using 3D-printed head models  —  Facial recognition is cropping up everywhere.  From shopping malls to the workplace, it's likely something is scanning your face every day.

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