Techmeme
August 12, 2014, 6:35 PM

Top News

Ina Fried / Re/code:
Apple's Diversity Report: 70 percent Male, 55 percent White in U.S.  —  Apple is the latest company to release a report on the diversity of its workforce, saying Tuesday that its numbers represent a work in progress to the diversity it hopes to achieve over time.  —  Currently seven in 10 of its workers globally are male.
Steven Levy / Wired:
Ex-Siri engineers promise consumer-friendly digital assistant “Viv” that can teach itself  —  Forget Siri: This Radical New AI Teaches Itself and Reads Your Mind  —  Viv was named after the Latin root meaning live.  Its San Jose, California, offices are decorated with tsotchkes bearing …
Christina Farr / Reuters:
Apple in talks with Mount Sinai, the Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, and Allscripts about its HealthKit service  —  Exclusive: Apple prepares Healthkit rollout amid tangled regulatory web  —  (Reuters) - Apple Inc has been discussing how its “HealthKit” service will work with health providers …
Nick Summers / The Next Web:
Xbox One to offer TV streaming on SmartGlass, video playback via USB and DLNA network streaming  —  Just before its Gamescom presentation kicked off, Microsoft announced some hefty updates for its Xbox One video game console affecting some of the core apps, SmartGlass and live TV.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Uber says Lyft cancelled 12.9K Uber rides, and Lyft investors pressured Uber to buy Lyft  —  Accusations Fly Between Uber and Lyft  —  All is fair, they say, in love and war.  And Uber and Lyft, two smartphone-based car services, are most certainly at war.
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
OnePlus asks women to participate in degrading contest to get a smartphone  —  The startup OnePlus recently launched its first smartphone, the One, and to deal with production issues it's been letting people buy them by invitation only, slowly offering them to more people as more are produced.
Nick Summers / The Next Web:
Sony has sold 10 million PlayStation 4 consoles worldwide  —  Sony is on a roll.  During its press conference at Gamescom 2014, the company announced it has now sold 10 million PlayStation 4 consoles worldwide.  —  To be clear, this is the number of consoles that have been bought by consumers …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Uber is launching an API to enable “Request A Ride” buttons in more apps  —  Uber Is About To Launch An API  —  Uber wins when you hit the “Request A Ride” button, so shouldn't it try to put that button everywhere?  It seemed like a smart plan, so I did some digging …
More: The Next WebTweets: @panzer and @joshconstine
Zachary M. Seward / Quartz:
Twitter admits that as many as 23 million of its active users are automated  —  This piece has been updated to clarify the kinds of accounts in question.  —  Twitter raised eyebrows last month when it suggested that many of its active users aren't actually human.  Now we know how many.
Austin Carr / Fast Company:
Square killed prototype credit card due to legal hurdles and fear it would alienate partners  —  Why Jack Dorsey Killed The Square Credit Card  —  Square, the payments startup from Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, has prototyped a Square credit card.  The plastic card is all black …
More: Gigaom and The VergeThanks:@davidlidsky
Ben Thompson / stratechery:
BuzzFeed's valuation reflects how the Internet is narrowing the difference between media and software distribution  —  Is BuzzFeed a Tech Company?  —  It's telling that Chris Dixon, in a blog post explaining Andreessen Horowitz's $50 million investment, goes out of his way to explain …
Bloomberg:
Apple suppliers begin production of new iPads, 9.7-inch to feature anti-reflective coating  —  Apple's Suppliers Said to Begin Production of New IPad Tablets  —  Apple Inc. (AAPL)'s suppliers have started manufacturing new iPads, according to people with knowledge of the matter …
Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:
RelayRides Adds $10 Million From Trinity And Looks To Expand Peer-To-Peer Airport Rentals  —  When we last checked in with peer-to-peer car rental startup RelayRides about six weeks ago, it had raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Canaan Partners.  Well, it wasn't quite finished raising money, as it turns out.
More: Skift and PE Hub BlogThanks:@stevendwebb
Kyle Russell / TechCrunch:
YC-Backed Rigetti Computing Raises $2.5M To Create Commercial Quantum Systems  —  Once confined to research labs and science fiction, quantum computing is finally reaching a point where researchers aren't simply trying to find out what's possible, but looking at how they can actually work the technology into commercial hardware.
Ina Fried / Re/code:
HTC builds separate business unit to make software for more than just HTC phones  —  HTC Builds Software Business Amid Tough Phone Market  —  Despite building some of the sexiest smartphones this side of Apple, HTC's hardware and financial challenges have been well documented.

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Deep analysis for deep questions  —  Introducing Superagent.  A new research product from Airtable: Subagents deeply interrogate your topic and turn it into boardroom-ready reports, slides, docs, or websites.
Clay:
Turn any GTM idea into reality  —  Clay helps GTM teams combine AI agents, enrichment, and intent data to move faster and turn insights into action.
Zoho:
App Spotlight: Plug&Play AI Email Assistant for Zoho CRM  —  Our App Spotlight brings you hand-picked apps to enhance the power of your Zoho apps and tools.  Visit Zoho Marketplace to explore all of our apps …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Is Something Big Happening?, AI Safety Apocalypse, Anthropic Raises $30 Billion
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Hard Fork:
'Something Big Is Happening' + A.I. Rocks the Romance Novel Industry + One Good Thing
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Lenny's Podcast:
"Engineers are becoming sorcerers" | The future of software development with OpenAI's Sherwin Wu
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Cheeky Pint:
Ben Thompson from Stratechery on AI ads, the end of SaaS, and the future of media
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
The Billionaire Button w/ Tim Wu
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:35 PM ET, August 12, 2014.

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

Earlier Picks

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: