Techmeme
September 24, 2019, 3:25 PM

Top News

BBC:
EU's top court rules that Google does not have to apply “right to be forgotten” globally  —  Europe's top court has ruled that Google does not have to apply the right to be forgotten globally.  —  It means that firm only needs to remove references to articles and other material …
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Facebook buys CTRL-Labs, which makes a bracelet that measures neuron activity to detect movements the user is thinking about; sources: size of deal is $500M-$1B  —  - CTRL-Labs is said to fetch $500 million to $1 billion  — Facebook may one day pair the technology with AR or VR glasses
Meagan Simpson / BetaKit:
Kik says it is shutting down its messaging app and will reduce its headcount to 19 people, amid its heated legal battle with the SEC over its ICO  —  The Kik app is officially shutting down.  The company will reduce its headcount to 19 people, and will focus solely on converting Kin users into Kin buyers …
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann is resigning as CEO, will be nonexecutive chairman of We Co.; source: his voting shares will be reduced in power from 10:1 to 3:1  —  - The executive has been under pressure since WeWork released its S-1, amid concerns about its corporate governance and valuation.
Jia Tolentino / New Yorker:
How massively popular short-video app TikTok holds our attention, using AI to churn through a deluge of images and sounds to deliver the best bite-size content  —  On the popular short-video app, young people are churning through images and sounds at warp speed, repurposing reality into ironic, bite-size content.
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Amazon announces the Voice Interoperability Initiative to improve voice assistant compatibility, with 30+ companies on board but not Google, Apple, and Samsung  —  A day ahead of its annual fall hardware event, Amazon is making a big partnership announcement: it has created …
Sam Byford / The Verge:
Xiaomi announces Mi 9 Pro 5G with Snapdragon 855+, 8 or 12GB RAM, 6.5-inch 1080p OLED display, and support for 30W fast wireless charging, starting at ~$520  —  Full charge in 69 minutes, no wires required  —  Xiaomi has announced the Mi 9 Pro 5G, a new variant of its generally very good Mi 9 …
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft is creating a new Data Dignity initiative in an attempt to help users control their own personal data, possibly to the point of buying and selling it  —  Microsoft is staffing up a new Data Dignity team in its CTO's office which could help users to control their own personal data …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Meme editor Kapwing, which has grown from ~100,000 to ~1M since launching a year ago, raises $11M Series A led by CRV  —  Kapwing is a laymen's Adobe Creative Suite built for what people actually do on the internet: make memes and remix media.  Need to resize a video?  Add text or subtitles to a video?
More: FinSMEs and Variety
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Fiddler raises $10.2M Series A, co-led by Lightspeed and Lux Capital, for AI that explains its reasoning, which it aims to launch next year  —  Explainable AI, which refers to techniques that attempt to bring transparency to traditionally opaque AI models and their predictions, is a burgeoning subfield of machine learning research.
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Acquia, a cloud CMS provider for the open source Drupal project, gets acquired by Vista Equity Partners in a deal valued at $1B  —  Vista Equity Partners, which likes to purchase undervalued tech companies and turn them around for a hefty profit, has purchased web content management …
David Priest / CNET:
Early look at Amazon's $50 screen-less Echo Auto: doesn't offer step-by-step driving directions but has voice commands for music, checking traffic, and calls  —  I love the idea of a voice assistant in my car: Hands-free calling, music requests, directions — it seems like everything would become easier and safer.
More: USA Today
Dr. Ian Cutress / AnandTech:
Q&A with Huawei CEO Richard Yu about shipping Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro without Play Store apps, its plans for luring developers to Huawei App Gallery, and more  —  As the world's second largest smartphone manufacturer, the growth of Huawei over the last decade has been immense.
Thanks:@anandtech

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