Techmeme
August 28, 2019, 5:20 PM

Top News

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:
Apple announces changes to its Siri audio clip review process, making it opt-in for users, bringing the work in-house, and saying it won't retain recordings  —  The top line news is that Apple is making changes to the way that Siri audio review, or ‘grading’ works across all of its devices.
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Amazon's Ring has partnerships with over 400 US police forces, granting them access to footage by request, higher than previously believed  —  The doorbell-camera company Ring has quietly forged video-sharing partnerships with more than 400 police forces across the United States …
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Facebook tightens rules on political advertisers, requiring further identity proof such as tax-identification number or Federal Election Commission registration  —  Facebook on Wednesday announced it would tighten some of its rules around political advertising ahead of the 2020 presidential election …
Damien Wilde / 9to5Google:
Report: Google plans to move some production of Pixel 3A from China to Vietnam later this year and aims to have shipped 8M-10M smartphones by the end of 2019  —  According to a report from Japanese news outlet Nikkei, Google is set to move production of the Pixel from China to Vietnam amid the growing US-China trade war.
Alexandra Ma / Business Insider:
Report: US officials are trying to block an undersea cable backed by Google and Facebook connecting Los Angeles to Hong Kong over national security concerns  —  - An 8,000-mile undersea cable connecting Los Angeles to Hong Kong is at risk of being abandoned over national-security threats, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Saritha Rai / Bloomberg:
Source: Apple will begin selling its devices online in India over the coming months, after the country relaxed rules mandating local production  —  - iPhone maker could start online sales in India within months  — Eased requirements may reduce China manufacturing dependency
Lauren Kaori Gurley / VICE:
Three prominent men in the video game industry were accused of sexual assault in one day this week, re-igniting a broader debate about #MeToo and the industry  —  Developers who worked on ‘Gears of War 4’ and ‘Night in the Woods’ have been accused of sexual assault.  —  MARCO PIUNTI/GETTY IMAGES
Colin Campbell / Polygon:
LCG Entertainment, a new company formed by game industry veterans, to buy defunct studio Telltale Games, sell some of their back catalog, and work on new games  —  A new attempt to relaunch the episodic adventure company  —  Telltale Games, which shut down last year, is coming back after its assets …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft begins bringing a dark mode to its apps, starting with Outlook for iOS and Android and Office.com; Word and others to gain dark mode for iOS 13 launch  —  Microsoft goes all in on dark mode for iOS 13's launch  —  Microsoft revealed that it was working on a dark mode for Outlook …
Cameron Faulkner / The Verge:
Nathaniel Popper / New York Times:
Sources: when Telegram raised $1.7B in 2018, it told investors it will deliver Gram by Oct. 31, 2019, or give back the money, and now says it is still on track  —  While Facebook's big cryptocurrency plans have hit a wall with regulators, another big social network, Telegram, is charging ahead with its own digital currency.
Lucas Kunce / New York Times:
Tech workers should distinguish between the role of technologies like AI and AR on the battlefield and general questions of whether US war-making is right  —  You have the power to help your fellow Americans survive on the battlefield and carry out military missions without harming civilians.
Renee Dudley / ProPublica:
Investigation finds cyber insurers often prefer to pay the ransom for ransomware attacks, even when backup files could be recovered, to save claim costs  —  Even when public agencies and companies hit by ransomware could recover their files on their own, insurers prefer to pay the ransom.  Why?
Sophie Kleeman / VICE:
A steady stream of A-list celebs, from Will Smith to Zac Efron to Alexa Chung, have recently become YouTube vloggers, embracing the authenticity and new fans  —  Over the past 20 or so months, some of the biggest stars in the world have turned to something people do to get famous in the first place: vlogging.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Inkitt, a crowdsourced publishing platform that has 1.6M readers and 110K writers, raises $16M Series A, and says its reading app Galatea has a run-rate of $6M  —  The traditional world of publishing has been challenged hard by the digital revolution.  Reading as a pastime has been in significant decline …
More: FinSMEs
Julia Carrie Wong / The Guardian:
Pinterest says it will begin surfacing fact-based search results, from the WHO and others, when users search for 200 vaccine-related queries  —  Users who search for terms related to vaccines will be presented with information from major public health organizations

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Meet Airtable ProductCentral  —  The unified solution for managing your entire product development process in the AI era.
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.
Zoho:
Zoho SalesIQ turns 10: Transforming customer experiences since 2014  —  October marked a remarkable milestone for Zoho SalesIQ—our 10th anniversary.  What began in 2014 as a simple live chat tool has evolved …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 11/01 - ChatGPT Search
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 5:20 PM ET, August 28, 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

Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch:
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:
The Social Science Research Council: