Techmeme
January 7, 2020, 7:10 PM

Top News

New York Times:
Sonos sues Google, seeking financial damages and a ban on the sale of Google's speakers, smartphones, and laptops in US for allegedly infringing on five patents  —  The maker of home speakers said Google and Amazon stole its technology and abused their power, but it could only risk suing one.
New York Times:
Khari Johnson / VentureBeat:
Google says Assistant now has 500M users and announces upcoming features: Scheduled Actions, privacy-focused voice controls, longform reading, and Sticky Notes  —  Google Assistant is now used by 500 million monthly active users, and today Google is previewing features on the way in 2020 …
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
About Facebook:
Facebook says it is tightening its policies around misleading manipulated media by banning videos that are either heavily edited or deepfakes  —  People share millions of photos and videos on Facebook every day, creating some of the most compelling and creative visuals on our platform.
Washington Post:
Facebook bans deepfakes, but its new policy may not cover simpler forms of deception like with the distorted Pelosi video  —  Facebook has banned users from posting computer-generated, highly manipulated videos, known as deepfakes, seeking to stop the spread of a novel form of misinformation months …
Natasha Mascarenhas / Crunchbase News:
Report: pizza-making robot startup Zume, which raised $375M from SoftBank Vision Fund in 2018, plans to lay off up to 400 staff, or about 80% of its employees  —  In a little over a year, pizza-making robot startup Zume has gone from getting $375 million from SoftBank, to pivoting …
Cory Weinberg / The Information:
Sources: Softbank-backed car-rental startup Getaround plans to lay off ~150 employees, or about a quarter of its staff, to mitigate rising costs  —  Car-rental startup Getaround plans to lay off roughly 150 employees, or about a quarter of its staff, in a bid to reduce rising costs, people familiar with the matter said.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Lyft open sources Flyte, a platform for maintaining AI workflows that currently manages over 7,000 unique workflows at the company  —  Hot on the heels of Uber's open-sourcing of an AI debugging tool this morning, Lyft announced the release of Flyte, which it describes as a structured …
Joshua Goldman / CNET:
Lenovo unveils the Yoga 5G, a $1,499 2-in-1 with the Snapdragon 8cx chipset and claimed 24-hour battery life, coming spring and will be called Flex 5G in the US  —  Last May, Lenovo announced Project Limitless, its plan to make the first 5G laptop.  That plan is now a reality with the Yoga 5G …

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