Techmeme
September 5, 2019, 8:25 PM

Top News

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Facebook Dating launches in the US as an opt-in feature integrated with Instagram, for users 18 and over, with a separate profile  —  Are Americans ready to trust Facebook with their dating life?  Barely more than a month has passed since the U.S. Federal Trade Commission fined Facebook …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple launches a public beta of Apple Music on the web, available to all subscribers worldwide  —  Apple Music is coming to the web.  Apple today is launching a public beta of its popular music streaming service on the web, which will be available to all Apple Music subscribers worldwide.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is developing in-screen fingerprint tech to work alongside Face ID for its 2020/2021 iPhones and a low-cost 4.7-inch iPhone for H1 2020  —  - Company previously replaced fingerprint sensing with Face ID  — New low-cost iPhone in the works for first half of next year
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google unveils Assistant Ambient mode that turns docked Android phones and tablets into smart displays with calendar info, weather, smart home controls, more  —  Why does Google make everything twice?  —  Today at IFA, Google is announcing a new feature for Google Assistant: Ambient Mode.
Klint Finley / Wired:
Facebook, Microsoft, the Partnership on AI, and seven universities launch the “Deepfake Detection Challenge” to encourage better ways of detecting deepfakes  —  Deepfakes are improving.  The contest, which will include deepfakes created by Facebook, is designed to help researchers keep up.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Google is open sourcing its differential privacy library, which it uses to securely draw insights from data sets containing sensitive user information  —  Google is making differential privacy available to anyone  —  Google today announced that it is open-sourcing its so-called differential privacy library …
Bloomberg:
Sources: WeWork is considering seeking a valuation of ~$20B-$30B in its US IPO, marking a significant reduction from an earlier valuation of $47B  —  - Valuation would be a step down from earlier $47 billion  — IPO plans have received criticism for ‘obfuscating’ details
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
Samsung says the 512GB 5G model of Galaxy Fold will be available in Europe starting September 18 for ~$2,000; US launch will happen “in the coming weeks”  —  After its first attempt at a launch fizzled out in the spring, the Samsung Galaxy Fold is ready to try again at making a first impression.
MIT Technology Review:
MIT Media Lab founder and former director Nicholas Negroponte defends Joi Ito's decision to accept Epstein's money post Epstein's 2008 conviction  —  At an internal meeting, Nicholas Negroponte shocked some people with his comments on funding from the alleged sex trafficker.
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Sonos announces its first portable speaker, the $399 Sonos Move with WiFi and Bluetooth and support for Google Assistant, Alexa, AirPlay 2, and Spotify Connect  —  Sonos finally has a speaker that you can take out of your house  —  Sonos is finally jumping into the world of portable speakers.
Katherine Rosman / New York Times:
YouTube launches a fashion vertical, aggregating the platform's fashion content into one place, as it seeks to expand in the industry  —  The video platform woos the style set.  Will it work?  —  It's not a “collabo.”  It's a “collab.”  And it's pronounced “/kəˌlab.”
The Keyword:
Google introduces personalized movie and TV show recommendations in mobile search using a swipe left/right interface like in dating apps  —  When you're settling in for a movie night, or figuring out which shows you might want to binge before they return this fall, it's not always easy to choose from all the options out there.
Pew Research Center:
Pew study of 4,272 US adults: 86% have heard about facial recognition tech, 56% trust law enforcement to use it responsibly compared to 36% for tech companies  —  The ability of governments and law enforcement agencies to monitor the public using facial recognition was once the province of dystopian science fiction.
Jane Manchun Wong:
Medium's app code shows the company is working on an Instapaper-like reader app function that would let users save articles from the web to a reading list  —  When Medium was first launched, it stood out among other blogging platforms for its minimalist design.
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
The YouTube-FTC deal on child privacy violations includes conditions that could depress revenue and views for creators, like removing comments and notifications  —  A community is fearful that major shifts are coming  —  On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission fined YouTube $170 million …
Ian Agar / PitchBook:
Sources: P2P car sharing startup Getaround is raising $201.5M Series D extension at ~$1.7B valuation, up from an estimated valuation of $840M last year  —  Getaround is seeking to raise up to $201.5 million in Series D extension funding, PitchBook has learned.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Stripe launches Stripe Capital, a service for advancing loans to customers that get repaid out of future sales made through Stripe's platform, in the US  —  A year ago we broke the news that payment giant Stripe was quietly making its first move into business finance by testing a service for advancing cash to existing customers.

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Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge: