Techmeme
August 15, 2019, 8:15 PM

Top News

The Keyword:
Google Assistant now lets users create reminders that can be assigned to friends or family, including scheduled time-based or location-based reminders  —  If you're a fellow parent, you probably spend a lot of time coordinating with your partner through on-the-fly conversations, text messages or phone calls.
Elizabeth Lopatto / The Verge:
A close reading of the S-1 of the soap opera that is The We Company, a “tech company” whose mission “is to elevate the world's consciousness”  —  On August 14th, The We Company (the company formerly known as WeWork) filed its mandatory S-1 paperwork to go public, and it's worth reading in full.
Dan Primack / Axios:
Will Oremus / OneZero:
YouTube's guidelines may not discriminate against LGBTQ creators, but their vagueness and ad-friendly conservatism leads to discriminatory enforcement  —  A new lawsuit highlights a basic injustice in YouTube's “ad-friendly” policies  —  ouTube wants to be a platform for self-expression for all kinds of people.
Karl Bode / VICE:
Google says data from its new “Password Checkup” Chrome extension shows that 1.5% of all website logins use credentials that have been compromised  —  New ‘Password Checkup’ Chrome extension found 1.5 percent of all website logins use compromised credentials, a figure that's higher for porn websites.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple sues mobile device virtualization company Corellium, accusing it of copyright infringement for illegally replicating iOS and iPhone and iPad apps  —  Apple today filed a lawsuit against Corellium, a mobile device virtualization company that supports iOS.
Shirin Ghaffary / Vox:
Study: leading AI models to detect hate speech are 1.5x more likely to flag tweets by African Americans as offensive or hateful, partly due to social context  —  A new study shows that leading AI models are 1.5 times more likely to flag tweets written by African Americans as “offensive” compared to other tweets.
The Information:
Investors and employees of Toptal, a freelancing platform with ~$200M revenue and originally funded by $1.5M in convertible notes, have ended up with no equity  —  Toptal, a service that connects companies with freelance software engineers, is a Silicon Valley success story.
Eugene Kim / CNBC:
Amazon launches a new donations program, called FBA Donations, for third-party sellers to dispose of unsold products stored in its warehouses in the US and UK  —  KEY POINTS  — Amazon is launching a new donations program, called FBA Donations, for third-party sellers that store …
April Glaser / Slate:
Tech companies can do a lot more to protect the identities of people speaking in recordings used to train AI, like shifting the voice or gender of the speaker  —  It turns out that Siri, Alexa, and whatever it is you call Facebook Messenger have been a little loose-lipped with your conversations.
Ronald Eikenberg / heise online:
Data leak in Kaspersky's antivirus software for Windows has allowed third parties to potentially track users by injecting unique IDs into web pages since 2015  —  Kaspersky promises security and data protection.  However, a data leak allowed third parties to spy on users while they were surfing the web.
Cristina Tardáguila / Poynter:
Facebook is expanding its third-party fact checking program to Instagram, starting with US, and will downplay posts deemed fake on its Explore and Hashtag pages  —  Starting today, Instagram users can report false content and expect certified fact-checkers to analyze its veracity.
Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:
After a 40% share price drop in 2019, Baidu has been replaced on the top 5 list of China's most valuable internet companies by NetEase  —  - Tencent's closest gaming rival NetEase is now worth more  — Search giant Baidu faces threat from newer tech star ByteDance
Aric Toler / bellingcat:
A deep dive into Amazon FC Ambassadors program finds 53 Ambassador accounts in seven countries, some of which are using fake identities and recycling accounts  —  On August 14, a Twitter thread that included a small army of “Amazon FC Ambassadors” went viral, bringing to light Amazon's year-long social media brand ambassador program.
David Frankel / Founder Collective:
Overview of startup exits outside Silicon Valley from the past ten years, not including Asian companies: Sweden edges out UK, Boston remains big, more  —  There's never been a better time to build a company outside the Bay Area  —  The Bay Area has been the best place to build a startup for the last two decades.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
UiPath:
Introducing the UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation  —  UiPath's new platform empowers enterprises to experience the full power of AI to transform industries
Zoho:
Automate recurring activities with Zoho One's RPA addition  —  Robotic Process Automation (RPA) automates manual and routine tasks for businesses by using digital robots that replicate human behaviour.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
Omnibus Week Of 04/28
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Trump's first 100 days: DOGE, tariffs, TikTok, and more
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Hard Fork:
The Dangers of A.I. Flattery + Kevin Meets the Orb + Group Chat Chat
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
EP 141 Ben Lamm (Founder & CEO, Colossal Biosciences) On The Breakthroughs Making De-Extinction Actually Possible
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Great Chat:
What's the deal with Deel?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Lenny's Podcast:
The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can't stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:15 PM ET, August 15, 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

Laura Parker / GameSpot:
Andrew Webster / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

CNBC:
Colin Lecher / The Verge:
Jordan Davis / Facebook:
Mariella Moon / Engadget: