Techmeme
April 11, 2019, 10:35 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources describe Amazon Alexa's AI-training process, where workers transcribing voice clips see customer account numbers and hear private conversations  —  Tens of millions of people use smart speakers and their voice software to play games, find music or trawl for trivia.
Joseph Cox / Motherboard:
DOJ charges Julian Assange with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for assisting Chelsea Manning in her attempt to crack a password stored on DOD computers  —  For years, it has been publicly reported that Julian Assange offered to help Chelsea Manning break into a classified computer system.
Vlad Savov / The Verge:
In his annual shareholder letter, Jeff Bezos challenges retail rivals to match or raise their minimum wage above Amazon's $15 per hour  —  Target plans to move to $15 per hour by end of 2020 while Walmart lags behind at $11 an hour  —  In his annual letter to shareholders …
Shannon Liao / The Verge:
Tom Krazit / GeekWire:
Tom Krazit / GeekWire:
Josh Dzieza / The Verge:
Interviews with Wisconsin residents about Foxconn's slow progress with its investments in the state seem to indicate Foxconn has no idea what it's doing  —  Last summer, Foxconn announced a barrage of new projects in Wisconsin — so we went looking for them
Apple:
Apple says it now has 44 suppliers, including Foxconn and TSMC, that have committed to run their Apple production on 100% clean energy  —  Company Spends $2.5 Billion in Environmental Initiatives  —  Cupertino, California — Apple today announced it has nearly doubled the number of suppliers …
CNN:
MIT grad student Katie Bouman helped develop the imaging algorithm for the Event Horizon Telescope that captured the first picture of a black hole  —  (CNN)Imagine trying to take a photo of an orange that's on the moon with your smartphone.  It seems impossible.
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Coinbase launches Coinbase Card, a Visa debit card for UK customers to spend cryptocurrencies in-store and online, will expand to other EU countries in months  —  When you buy cryptocurrencies on Coinbase, many users simply don't know what to do with them.  Customers in the U.K …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Instagram says it will demote posts that are “inappropriate” but do not go against its Community Guidelines by not showing them in Explore or hashtag pages  —  Instagram is home to plenty of scantily-clad models and edgy memes that may start to get fewer views starting today.
Wired:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Gartner and IDC estimate PC shipments of 58.5M in Q1 2019, with Gartner reporting shipments down 4.6% YoY, and IDC reporting them down 3% YoY  —  The PC market is still in decline, according to research firms Gartner and IDC.  That's nothing new for the duo to agree on, but coincidentally they also …
Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:
Lemonade, which uses an AI-powered bot to digitize the insurance buying experience for renters and homeowners, raises $300M Series D led by the SoftBank Group  —  Lemonade, the insurance startup founded by Daniel Schreiber and Shai Wininger, has today announced a $300 million Series D financing led …
More: Forbes and FinSMEs
Karen Weise / New York Times:
The Pentagon says Amazon and Microsoft are the final candidates for its $10B JEDI contract and that IBM and Oracle didn't meet the minimum requirements  —  The Pentagon said Wednesday that Amazon and Microsoft were the final candidates for a hotly contested $10 billion contract to bring modern cloud computing to the Defense Department.
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Democratic senators propose the Algorithmic Accountability Act, which would require large companies to audit machine learning-powered systems for bias  —  US lawmakers have introduced a bill that would require large companies to audit machine learning-powered systems — like facial recognition or ad targeting algorithms — for bias.
More: Reuters, The Register, NBC News, and CNET
Tweets: @ashk4n and @mims

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.
Zoho:
Introducing AI Forms: Create optimized forms with AI in Zoho Forms  —  The future of form creation isn't coming, it's here.  Forget everything you thought you knew about building online forms.
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
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.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Mon. 12/23 - The Revenge Of Google Glass?
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 10:35 AM ET, April 11, 2019.

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

Pew Research Center:

Earlier Picks

Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Steve Blank:
Financial Times:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Karen Weise / New York Times: