Techmeme
May 23, 2016, 2:25 PM

Top News

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Spotify family plan is now cheaper, $14.99 for up to 6 people  —  Spotify is catching up with the competition when it comes to family plans.  Like Apple Music and Google Play Music, families can now subscribe to Spotify Premium for $14.99 per month and get six different Spotify accounts and profiles.
Marco Arment / Marco.org:
If users prioritize big-data AI services, like those offered by Google, Amazon, Facebook, then Apple will be in a position similar to BlackBerry was in 2007  —  Before the iPhone, RIM's BlackBerry was the king of smartphones.  They seemed unstoppable, because by most accounts …
Emanuel Maiberg / Motherboard:
Libre VR, creator of Revive tool used to play Oculus games on Vive headsets, circumvents Oculus' new DRM in under 24 hours, making it easier to pirate games  —  It's been a little bit over a day since Oculus started rolling out new DRM for its software, but it's already backfired, making pirating the company's games easier than ever.
ProPublica:
Analysis of 7K+ cases: strong bias against black defendants found in crime prediction software that's increasingly relied upon to guide sentencing in US courts  —  There's software used across the country to predict future criminals.  And it's biased against blacks.
Joshua Brustein / Bloomberg:
Race to build VR cameras escalates as Google teams with IMAX and Yi Technology on new rigs  —  Google is working with new camera manufacturers IMAX and Yi Technology to ramp up production  —  One of the most impressive things Google unveiled at its developers conference last May was an odd, disc-shaped gadget called the Odyssey.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: China's Tencent seeks majority stake in Clash of Clans maker Supercell, in early stage talks with SoftBank  —  Chinese Internet firm's discussions with Japan's SoftBank are still at early stage  —  HONG KONG—Internet company Tencent Holdings Ltd. of China is in talks …
More: iMore and TechCrunch
Scott Cendrowski / Fortune:
Xiaomi revenue for 2015 reached 78B yuan, only a 5% rise from 2014's 74.3B yuan  —  Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone maker and second highest-valued startup in the world at $45 billion, barely grew sales at all last year.  —  Revenue for 2015 reached 78 billion yuan ($12.5 billion) …
More: CNBC and CNET
Tristan Harris:
Ten ways tech products are designed to manipulate users to spur usage  —  Estimated reading time: 12 minutes.  —  I'm an expert on how technology hijacks our psychological vulnerabilities.  That's why I spent the last three years as Google's Design Ethicist caring about how to design things …

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Earlier Picks

Chris DiBona / Google for Education: