Techmeme
November 1, 2019, 8:00 PM

Top News

Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Google to acquire Fitbit at $7.35 per share in cash, valuing the company at about $2.1B  —  - The acquisition pits Alphabet against fellow tech giant Apple in the wearable fitness tracking space.  —  Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks on stage during the annual Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, May 8, 2018.
More: The Verge, Fitbit, Inc., The Keyword, New York Times, VentureBeat, AnandTech, Washington Post, Android Central, Bloomberg, Windows Central, The Register, The Verge, TechCrunch, TechCrunch, Mashable, AppleInsider, Ars Technica, MacRumors, New York Times, Bloomberg, Tech.co, Variety, Vox, TalkAndroid.com, WebProNews, BetaNews, iPhone Hacks, Search Engine Land, Cult of Mac, ZDNet, Gizmodo, Voicebot.ai, Droid Life, WinBuzzer, Neowin, TechSpot, Coinspeaker, Phandroid, VentureBeat, CNET, Thurrott, Crunchbase News, GeekWire, Michael Tsai, Business Insider, Gizchina, Android Police, SlashGear, Macworld, Digital Trends, Firstpost Tech, Technology Personalized, ExtremeTech, Tom's Guide, Android Authority, iDownloadBlog.com, The Daily Caller, OnMSFT.com, XDA Developers, Fast Company, AndroidGuys, Silicon Republic, 9to5Google, KnowTechie, Pocketnow, Memeburn, PYMNTS.com, Newser, Computer Business Review, Axios, and The Daily Dot
Alex Heath / The Information:
Source: Facebook held talks to acquire Fitbit but wanted to pay roughly half of the $2.1B that Google eventually agreed to pay  —  Before Google reached a $2.1 billion deal to buy Fitbit, announced on Friday, Facebook held talks to acquire the smartwatch-maker, according to two people familiar with the situation.
Reuters:
Sources: CFIUS has launched a review of ByteDance's 2017 acquisition of Musical.ly, as TikTok didn't seek clearance from CFIUS during the acquisition  —  NEW YORK/BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government has launched a national security review of TikTok owner Beijing ByteDance …
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple TV+ launches with nine original titles in 100+ countries for $4.99/month or $49.99/year with a one year free trial on the purchase of a new Apple device  —  After months of waiting, Apple's TV streaming service Apple TV+ is now live.  You can start watching on any platform that offers …
Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Sources: NBCUniversal is considering making its ad-supported Peacock streaming service free for everyone, with an ad-free tier available for subscribers  —  - NBC is considering giving away the ad-supported version of its streaming service Peacock for free to everyone, sources say.
Kyle Orland / Ars Technica:
BBC:
Investigation finds domestic workers in Kuwait are sold using Instagram, promoted via hashtags; other apps on Play Store and App Store list people for sale  —  Drive around the streets of Kuwait and you won't see these women.  They are behind closed doors, deprived of their basic rights …
Ryan Christoffel / MacStories:
Adobe updates its Creative Cloud iOS app with 1,300 free fonts that can now be used by any iOS 13 app supporting custom fonts API  —  Today Adobe released an update to its Creative Cloud app on iPhone and iPad which introduced a set of thousands of fonts that can now be installed …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
In an earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg defends Facebook's political ads policy, estimates ads from politicians will be less than 0.5% of company's revenue in 2020  —  As Jack Dorsey announced his company Twitter would drop all political ads, Facebook CEO Zuckerberg doubled-down on his policy of refusing to fact check politicians' ads.
@jack:

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
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:
CIO challenge 5: Can we find an effective solution that also minimizes operational costs?  —  Welcome to the next and final installment of our CIO series!  After what feels like a thousand cups of coffee …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 11/21 - What The DOJ Wants Google To Do
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 8:00 PM ET, November 1, 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

Josh O'Kane / Globe and Mail:

Earlier Picks

Washington Post:
Johana Bhuiyan / Los Angeles Times:
Reuters:
Drew Harwell / Washington Post: