Techmeme
August 27, 2019, 8:55 PM

Top News

Mike Isaac / New York Times:
US government charges Anthony Levandowski, a former star engineer at Google and Uber, with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of Google trade secrets  —  SAN JOSE, Calif. — Anthony Levandowski, one of Silicon Valley's foremost technologists on self-driving cars, was charged …
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
CBP searched 30,000 devices last year without a warrant, up ~4x from three years prior, and increasingly denies entry to people over content sent by others  —  Travelers are increasingly being denied entry to the United States as border officials hold them accountable for messages …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Privacy fundamentalism, which does not consider the inherent nature of the internet and the unavoidable trade-offs, is a surefire way to get policy wrong  —  Farhad Manjoo, in the New York Times, ran an experiment on himself: … Here is a shrunk-down version of the graphic that resulted …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft announces Surface event on October 2 in New York City  —  We might see a new dual-screen Surface  —  Microsoft is holding a special Surface hardware event in New York City in October.  The event, which will be held on October 2nd, could serve as the first unveiling of Microsoft's dual-screen Surface device.
Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:
Peloton's public S-1 shows revenue of $915M in fiscal 2019, up 110% YoY, and an annualized subscriber growth of ~144% over the past 3 years, to 511K this June  —  Today, Peloton, the maker of pricey in-home bicycles and treadmills paired with on-demand fitness classes, filed its S-1 …
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Google Maps is rolling out the ability for users to combine different transit modes, like biking, public transit, and ride-sharing, in their directions  —  Google Maps is going multimodal  —  Google Maps is going multimodal.  The navigation app announced the launch of a new feature today …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Fairphone debuts Fairphone 3, its ethical, repairable smartphone made of responsibly sourced, recyclable materials, available from September 3 for €450  —  Featuring a repairable design made of fairly sourced, recyclable materials  —  Three years after the release of its last handset …
Nathan Ingraham / Engadget:
Yelp adds personalized search results based on users' diet, lifestyle, accessibility, and other preferences, to its iOS app  —  For good or ill, it's common for internet services to track what you do and offer “personalized” suggestions.  But Yelp, that stalwart of internet reviews …
Geoffrey A. Fowler / Washington Post:
Deep dive into the byzantine tracking and analytics industry around credit card purchases and steps that consumers can take to improve their privacy  —  In a privacy experiment, we bought one banana with the new Apple Card — and another with the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa from Chase.
The Social Science Research Council:
Unless Facebook delivers promised data to researchers by Sept. 30, consortium of funders will recommend Social Science Research Council wind down the project  —  Statement from Social Science Research Council President Alondra Nelson on the Social Media and Democracy Research Grants Program
Jalopnik:
Data from 14,756 fares: Uber and Lyft have slashed driver pay in recent years by taking a larger portion of each fare, far more than they publicly report  —  In July, an Uber driver we'll call Dave—his name has been changed here to protect his identity—picked up a fare in a trendy neighborhood of a major U.S. metropolitan area.
Reuters:
Sources: US Commerce Department has received 130+ applications from companies for licenses to sell US goods to Huawei; none of the licenses have been granted  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Commerce Department has received more than 130 applications from companies for licenses …
More: CNET
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
The Web Services Dynamic Discovery protocol, popular with IoT devices like printers and DVRs, is now being regularly abused in large DDoS attacks  —  Security researchers warn that the WS-Discovery protocol is currently being abused for massive DDoS attacks.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
E-commerce startup Enjoy, led by ex-Apple VP of retail operations Ron Johnson, raises $150M Series C to fuel its UK expansion, has now raised $350M to date  —  Enjoy, the e-commerce startup led by former Apple VP of retail operations, Ron Johnson, has raised an additional $150 million …
Bernie Sanders / Columbia Journalism Review:
Bernie Sanders pledges to protect news orgs from tech monopolies if elected, including stronger antitrust enforcement, taxing targeted ads to fund public media  —  Walter Cronkite once said that “journalism is what we need to make democracy work.”  He was absolutely right …
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
Source: judge rules Craig Wright must turn over half of his bitcoin holdings and IP from before 2014 to the estate of Dave Kleiman in $10B lawsuit filed in 2018  —  Craig Wright must turn over half of his bitcoin holdings and intellectual property to the estate of Dave Kleiman, a judge ruled Monday.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Researchers at Alphabet's DeepMind detail OpenSpiel, a collection of AI training tools for video games, now available on Github  —  Reinforcement learning, the AI training technique that's brought to fruition systems capable of defeating world poker champions and guiding self-driving cars …
More: GitHub

Sponsor Posts

TELUS Digital:
Are you ready for the era of agentic AI?  —  Tech leaders are always talking about what's next, and right now, agentic AI is dominating the discourse.  Equip yourself with the info you need in this recorded webinar.
Tribe AI:
State of AI: Adoption, Challenges and Recommendations  —  Examining the current state of AI, the key challenges organizations face, and practical recommendations for utilizing AI integration alongside other best practices.
Zoho:
Everything new in the Zoho Sign iOS mobile app  —  Ranked highly in the iOS App Store (4.9 stars), Zoho Sign's mobile app for iPhone is a user favorite.  We're thrilled to share that the app has been enhanced …
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:
Why COULDN'T Apple Make An iPhone In The US?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Derek Thompson (Writer, The Atlantic) and Zach Weinberg (Co-founder & CEO, Curie.Bio) Discuss the Tariff Withdrawal and America's Future
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Hard Fork:
Big Tech's Tariff Chaos + A.I. 2027 + Llama Drama
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.
Great Chat:
The bull case for domestic manufacturing
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.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Why DOGE is killing the agency that keeps banks from ripping you off
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Lenny's Podcast:
OpenAI's CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter)
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 8:55 PM ET, August 27, 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

Earlier Picks

Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
Nathaniel Mott / Tom's Hardware:
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Canalys Newsroom:
Cherlynn Low / Engadget: