Techmeme
July 11, 2019, 6:20 PM

Top News

The Keyword:
Google admits one of its language reviewers leaked confidential Dutch audio data and says it is investigating the issue  —  We're focused on building products that work for everyone, and as part of this, we invest significant resources to ensure that our speech technology works for a wide variety of languages, accents and dialects.
Tom Simonite / Wired:
Belgian broadcaster obtains 1,000+ Google Assistant audio clips from a Google contractor, some of which seem to be recorded inadvertently and may violate GDPR  —  GOOGLE, AMAZON, AND Apple say their AI-powered virtual assistants make it easier to get things done on smartphones or at home.
Reuters:
Trump says he plans to call execs from social media platforms to a meeting later this month; sources say they haven't received invites from the White House  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he plans to call a meeting of executives from major social media platforms later this month.
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Twitter was down globally for just over an hour today as the White House “social media summit” kicked off  —  When in doubt, ban yourself  —  Twitter appeared to be down for a large number of users across the United States on Thursday.  The company confirmed the issue to The Verge …
The Daily Beast:
The Information:
Sources: Bird lost about $100M in the first quarter, with revenue shrinking to about $15M, and the company told people that it has about $100M in cash left  —  The wintertime was bleak for Bird.  In this year's first quarter, the electric scooter operator lost nearly $100 million …
Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:
Apple says it has temporarily disabled the Apple Watch Walkie Talkie app, due to a vulnerability that could allow iPhone eavesdropping, while it works on a fix  —  Apple has disabled the Apple Watch Walkie Talkie app due to an unspecified vulnerability that could allow a person to listen …
Tom Simonite / Wired:
Facebook says its AI bot Pluribus, developed in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon, is the first such bot to beat top pros at six-player No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em  —  The 32-year-old is the only person to have won four World Poker Tour titles and has earned more than $7 million at tournaments.
Katie Notopoulos / BuzzFeed News:
Facebook is starting to show users which marketing and data companies have your data, how an ad was targeted, and how to opt-out  —  The new tool tells you how an ad was targeted and which third-party agency or data broker was used.  It also links to pages to opt out.
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Amazon says it will spend $700M to retrain 100K, or about a third, of its US employees by 2025, acknowledging the impact of technology and automation on jobs  —  Amazon is embarking on a $700 million effort to retrain its U.S. workforce, in a high-profile acknowledgment of the impact …
Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times:
Sources: Amazon Music Unlimited's subscribers grew ~70% in the past year, compared to ~25% for Spotify; in April Amazon had 32M+ music subscribers in total  —  Amazon is adding subscribers to its music-streaming service at a faster rate than rivals such as Spotify, Apple and Google …
Sam Rutherford / Gizmodo:
Google is testing Shoelace, a hyper-local social networking iOS and Android app, based on shared interests around events and activities, starting in NYC  —  Google has never made a successful social network, but you have to give the company some credit for never giving up.
Ryan Gallagher / The Intercept:
A US nonprofit org founded by Google and IBM is working with a company helping China's government secretly monitor phone and internet activity of 200M people  —  An American organization founded by tech giants Google and IBM is working with a company that is helping China's authoritarian …
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Nielsen says it will start surveying podcast listeners about their consumption habits, including genre preferences and how long they listen to shows  —  More data on listeners  —  Nielsen, a company best known for tracking TV shows' popularity, is getting into the podcast data collection business.

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