Techmeme: Twitter's algorithmic timeline is like expanded version of “while you were away” feature, according to users testing it; opt-out is available (Casey Newton/The Verge)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

February 8, 2016, 10:50 AM

Top News

Casey Newton / The Verge:

Twitter's algorithmic timeline is like expanded version of “while you were away” feature, according to users testing it; opt-out is available — Here's how Twitter's new algorithmic timeline is going to work — Twitter went into an uproar Friday after a BuzzFeed report …

Jack Dorsey / @jack:

Jack Dorsey responds to #RIPTwitter, links Twitter's identity with real-time, doesn't deny an algorithmic feed but says there was no plan to launch next week — Hello Twitter! Regarding #RIPTwitter: I want you all to know we're always listening. We never planned to reorder timelines next week.

Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:

Sources: Google to release Gear VR-like headset this year compatible with a broad range of smartphones, embed VR technology into Android OS — Google pushes further into world of virtual reality — Google is developing a new virtual-reality headset for smartphones, and adding extra support …

Danny Sullivan / Marketing Land:

Hashtags included in 45% of Super Bowl ads; Facebook or Twitter mentioned in only 5% of ads — Hashtags In Super Bowl Ads Dropped Slightly To 45% In 2016 — As with last year, social networks were rarely mentioned, with Twitter and Facebook tied in our count.

More: MacRumors, 9to5Google, BGR, NBC Bay Area, SiliconANGLE, iPhone Hacks, CNET and Re/code. Tweets: @chrismessina. Thanks:@dannysullivan. See also Mediagazer

James Vincent / The Verge:

Facebook's Free Basics service has been banned in India — Facebook's free-but-restricted internet service, Free Basics, has been banned in India after the country's national telecoms regulator ruled that the program and others like it infringe the principles of net neutrality.

More: BBC, Times of India, Hindustan Times, VentureBeat, Tech in Asia, Slate, Engadget, BetaNews, PCWorld, World Wide Web Foundation, TechCrunch, Guardian, Business Insider, The Register, Gizmodo, The Next Web, Tech Times, Motherboard, NDTV Gadgets360.com and Wired.co.uk

Tweets: @mollywood and @amir

Chris Velazco / Engadget:

Canonical announces first Ubuntu tablet, the BQ Aquaris M10, features Convergence, letting it act like PC when connected to keyboard, mouse, display, on sale Q2 — Ubuntu's first tablet doubles as a desktop, goes on sale in Q2 — Remember that time Spanish device maker BQ started promoting a new …

More: Ubuntu Insights, The Register, ZDNet, CNET, PCWorld, TechnoBuffalo, The Verge, The Next Web, Liliputing and Geek.com

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

Amazon and other retailers should stop selling cheap USB-C cables with faulty wiring that can damage laptops, and instead demand certification for these cables — USB-C cables are playing Russian Roulette with your laptop — Over the past year or so, one of the biggest tech stories …

More: Amazon.com, MyBroadband, Benson Leung, The Register, Engadget, Android Authority, AppleInsider, Laptop Mag, FierceCIO News, Tech Insider and CNET. Tweets: @tha_rami

Glyn Moody / Ars Technica UK:

GCHQ's data-mining techniques revealed in new Snowden leak — Shhh! Top Secret—don't pass it on... (credit: GCHQ) — A “Data Mining Research Problem Book” marked “top secret strap 1” has been leaked that details some of the key techniques used by GCHQ to sift through the huge volumes …

More: Boing Boing, Motherboard, iTnews and Conspicuous Chatter

Mark Suster / Fortune:

Upfront survey of VCs: 91% expect valuations do go down in the first half of 2016, 62% say their portfolios are cutting costs — The State of Venture Capital — There are a lot of data points that one can use to get a sense of the venture capital markets, including the number of startup financings and the level of VC fundraising.

More: Silicon Republic and SlideShare. Tweets: @davemcclure and @davepell

Johana Bhuiyan / BuzzFeed:

Inside the “anti-Uber alliance” and how Grab (formerly GrabTaxi) is fighting for dominance in Southeast Asia's ride-hailing market — Grab, Uber, And The Battle For Southeast Asia — Grab (formerly GrabTaxi) is battling Uber in a little-talked-about but densely populated market and winning — for the moment, anyway.

Tweets: @buzzfeedben. Thanks:@fwd

Justin Lynch / Motherboard:

The tragedy of Ethiopia's internet: an instrument of surveillance, and only 3.7% have access — The Tragedy of Ethiopia's Internet — Nafkot Nega thinks journalists are terrorists. When I visited him and his mother, Serkalem Fassil, at their tiny apartment in the outskirts of Washington …

Tweets: @lpolgreen, @smith_jeffreyt, @sallyhayd, @thebanderson, @ilana_u and @pschwartzstein

New York Times:

Investors are willing to buy into Morgan Stanley's fund for indirect Uber equity without seeing financial details for company — Deal Shows Investors Are Willing to Make a Blind Bet on Uber — A deal about to close on Wall Street illustrates just how much some investors are willing to give …

More: The Verge, BloombergView.com, Fortune, Business Insider and GeekWire

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:

Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning — SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds. Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.

Cloudflare:

Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference — Stop preparing for agents. Start running them. 100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.

Zoho:

Pro Tips: 4 tips to overcome data problems in your CRM — Most CRM data problems don't look like problems. At a glance, your CRM looks fine: records exist, fields are filled, and reports run.

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.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Invest Like the Best:

Noah Shinn - Building Instinct: The Personal Agent

The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

Lenny's Podcast:

The grief, loneliness, and burnout sweeping through the tech industry right now | Molly Graham

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.

Big Technology Podcast:

Meta's Muse Revival, Frontier AI Under Threat, The Rise Of Dopamine Sites

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.

Sources:

Satya Nadella on Microsoft's agent bet and AI's trust problem

Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.

Subscribe to Sources.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

Meta's New $1300 Glasses and the Fight to Control AI

Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.

Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.

Great Chat:

Doomers at Dreamforce

A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.

Subscribe to Great Chat.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:50 AM ET, February 8, 2016.

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.