Techmeme
January 8, 2019, 12:40 AM

Top News

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Sam Kim / Bloomberg:
Samsung forecasts decline in Q4 operating profit to ~$9.65B, below analyst estimates of ~$12.4B, due to weak memory chip demand and competition in smartphones  —  Samsung Electronics Co. posted fourth-quarter profit below estimates as demand for memory chips slumps amid deteriorating relations between the U.S. and China.
Roger Cheng / CNET:
HTC unveils Vive Pro Eye, a new VR headset with eye-tracking capabilities, coming in April, and teases the Vive Cosmos, a new consumer-friendly headset  —  HTC wants to make it easier for everyone to get into virtual reality.  And it hopes to do it through the Vive Cosmos.
CoinDesk:
Coinbase says it's halted Ethereum Classic transactions, withdrawals, and deposits, after a 51% attack on the cryptocurrency led to coin double-spending  —  Crypto exchange Coinbase has halted all ethereum classic transactions, withdrawals and deposits due to a series of blockchain history reorganizations on the network.
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Kroger partners with Microsoft, rolls out a pilot project in two stores with digital shelves, guided shopping, personalized ads, and “pick-to-light” shelf tech  —  Microsoft and Kroger are taking a leaf out of Amazon's book by building futuristic “connected” grocery stores.
Amir Efrati / The Information:
Leaked docs from last March: Uber projected net revenue of $14.2B by 2019, up 2X from 2017, and its 2019 EBITDA losses to shrink to $500M from ~$1.7B in 2018  —  When Wall Street banks last fall were pitching to take Uber public, some suggested the ride-hailing giant could hit the public market with a valuation of $120 billion.
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Matthew Hughes / The Next Web:
GitHub now gives users of its free plan access to unlimited private repositories, but those repos are limited to three collaborators apiece  —  Due to a scheduling error, we published this story one day before the embargo lifted.  This feature isn't live yet, but Github will formally unveil it tomorrow.
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
AT&T has rolled out software updates to some Android phones changing its branding of 4G LTE to “5G E”, says that 5G with mmWave technology will be branded “5G+”  —  AT&T starts swapping out “4G” status bar icons with “5GE.”  —  There's a new cellular network technology …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google expects Assistant to be on 1B devices by end of Jan., up from 500M last May, says global active users up 4X YoY, and feature phones will get Assistant  —  Active users have quadrupled since last year, but Google won't disclose a concrete number  —  As CES kicks off …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Intel demos its first 10nm Ice Lake chip, which is based on its Sunny Cove architecture, says PCs with the processor will ship by the end of 2019  —  Dell promises an Ice Lake laptop for end of 2019  —  Intel announced a major rethink of its chip design back in December, just before it finally delivers 10nm chips for PCs and laptops.
Sean O'Kane / The Verge:
Audi spins out its VR division into a new startup called Holoride that announces a partnership with Disney to make VR experiences for back seat passengers  —  Blasting bad guys from the back seat of an E-Tron  —  iIron Man needs help.  He's being chased through outer space by some of Thanos' baddies …
Financial Times:
Sources: SoftBank has radically scaled back plans for fresh investment in WeWork, is now planning a $2B investment, down from $16B considered late last year  —  Japan's SoftBank has radically scaled back plans for fresh investment in WeWork, the lossmaking shared-office provider …

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Amy Nordrum / IEEE Spectrum: