Techmeme
March 14, 2019, 7:45 PM

Top News

Facebook:
Facebook's Chief Product Officer Chris Cox and VP of WhatsApp Chris Daniels are leaving the company  —  Today Mark Zuckerberg shared the following post with employees.  —  Hey everyone — I want to share some important updates as we organize our company to build out the privacy-focused social platform …
Thomas Ricker / The Verge:
Facebook says all of its services are now operational, attributes the downtime to a “server configuration change”  —  Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook all appear to be operating normally  —  Facebook is reporting all services operational after a prolonged outage that impacted all of the company's most popular apps.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft launches a new cross-platform mobile SDK that allows game developers to add Xbox Live features to iOS or Android games  —  Microsoft also open to Xbox Live on the PS4 or Switch  —  Microsoft is bringing its Xbox Live network to iOS and Android devices.
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
Apple announces WWDC 2019 will be held June 3-7 at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose  —  Apple has officially announced dates and opened registration for its annual developer conference where it will likely unveil iOS 13, macOS 10.15, watchOS 6, and tvOS 13.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Slack says it has removed 28 accounts for having a “clear affiliation with known hate groups”  —  Chat competitor Discord has faced similar issues  —  Workplace chat company Slack said today it's removed 28 accounts for having a “clear affiliation with known hate groups.”
Li Tao / South China Morning Post:
Huawei says it has developed its own OS for both smartphones and computers in case those developed by US companies are no longer available  —  Huawei Technologies, the largest smartphone vendor in China, said it has developed its own operating systems (OS) for both smartphones and computers …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Valve announces an early beta of Steam Link Anywhere, a Steam Link extension that allows users to connect to their computers and play games from anywhere  —  Ahead of the Game Developers Conference, Valve is adding a couple of new features for its Steam digital game distribution platform.
Colin Harper / Bitcoin Magazine:
Tether drops the claim that it's “always backed 1-to-1 with traditional currency”, now says it's “100% backed by reserves”, emboldening the stablecoin's critics  —  Tether just updated its website to clarify that each of its USDT tokens, which it used to claim were …
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch:
Flight-hailing startup BlackBird, which says it has 700+ pilots who fly passengers between 50 and 500 miles from and within California, raises $10M Series A  —  The origin story of BlackBird, a startup that links travelers to planes and commercial pilots through an app, didn't begin with air travel.
Reuters:
Sources: Uber will issue its public S-1 and start its IPO roadshow in April  —  Carl O'Donnell, Heather Somerville  —  (Reuters) - Ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc is planning to kick off its initial public offering in April, putting it close on the heels of its smaller rival Lyft Inc …
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Google says it removed 2.3B bad ads in 2018, down 28% from 2017 and terminated ~1M bad advertiser accounts, including ~734K publishers and app developers  —  Around this time of year, Google shares how many “bad ads” it killed the year before.  And every year, the number grows.  But not this time.
Emma Haruka Iwao / Google Cloud Blog:
Google breaks world record for the most accurate value of pi, first time using cloud computing, calculating 31.4T digits after a ~112-day computation  —  Try GCP  —  Get $300 free credit to spend over 12 months.  —  Free Trial  —  TM title , and the first time the record  …
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Garmin targets the high-end watch market with a new Marq line of premium smartwatches priced between $1,500 and $2,500  —  Garmin is gunning for mainstays like Rolex, Breitling, and Omega  —  Garmin is taking its fitness-focused smartwatches in a more premium direction with its new Marq line.
More: TechCrunch
Benedict Evans:
There are parallels between Facebook's response to organized abuse of its platform and Microsoft's response to malware on Windows and Office 20 years ago  —  - There are strong parallels between organised abuse of Facebook and FB's attempts to respond, in the last 24 months …
Maggie Fitzgerald / CNBC:
TPG Capital fires Bill McGlashan, who managed TPG Growth, an investor in Airbnb, Spotify, and Uber, after the DOJ charged him in a college admissions scandal  —  - TPG's Bill McGlashan was fired from the private equity firm on Thursday amid the massive college cheating scandal.
More: Axios

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More News

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Earlier Picks

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