Techmeme
August 7, 2016, 4:40 PM

Top News

Sam Byford / The Verge:
Every Mac in Apple's current lineup except the 12-inch MacBook is outdated; the 13-inch non-Retina MacBook Pro was last updated in June 2012, still costs $1.1K  —  One thousand, five hundred and fourteen days.  Or: four years, one month, and twenty-four days.
Joel Hruska / ExtremeTech:
Apple's slow Mac refresh cycle is mostly driven by the low rate of improvements in the PC hardware today  —  Most of Apple's product lines are severely overdue for a refresh.  Apart from the recently refreshed MacBook, many of the company's Mac products are well over a year old.
More: MacDailyNews.  Tweets: @stevesi
Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:
China floods Silicon Valley with cash: $6B+ invested total, $3B+ in the last 18 months; Alibaba's troubled investment in Quixey shows how such deals can go bad  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Mountain View, Calif., start-up Quixey was the envy of many in Silicon Valley when the company announced …
Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:
Elite dealmakers like Carmen Chang and Connie Chan facilitate the deluge of deals between China and Silicon Valley  —  SAN FRANCISCO — When Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick wanted advice about whom to hire to run his ride-hailing business in China, he asked Carmen Chang …
Tweets: @smc90
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom gives full credit to Snapchat for Stories format, and looks at how tech companies build on each others' innovations  —  The one thing you never hear in Silicon Valley is an entrepreneur admit they copied someone else.  Yet there in the headquarters of Facebook …
Bloomberg:
FTC to crack down on sponsored celebrity social media posts that aren't explicitly disclosed  —  The agency says brands and the social media stars who promote their products need to be more transparent about sponsored content  —  Snapchat star DJ Khaled raves about Ciroc vodka.
More: SlashGear and Gizmodo.  Tweets: @sarahfrier
Recode:
Chris Urmson, CTO of Google's self-driving car project, announces he is leaving after seven years  —  A key executive of Google's self-driving car project is leaving the company.  Chris Urmson, who serves as CTO and technical lead, announced that he was leaving after seven years.
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Sources: Apple acquires Seattle-based machine learning startup Turi for around $200M  —  Machine learning and artificial intelligence startup Turi has been acquired by Apple in a deal characterized as a blockbuster exit for the Seattle-based company, formerly known as Dato and GraphLab, GeekWire has learned.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Disney launches its own messaging app, Disney Mix, aimed at kids and families  —  Disney today is wading into the mobile messaging marketwith a new chat applicationcalled Disney Mix, aimed at kids, tweens and families.  While the app will compete to some extent with popular messaging clients like WhatsApp …
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
US Copyright Office sides with cable companies on set-top boxes, says proposed FCC rules may encourage piracy  —  Set-top box rules could enable piracy, copyright official warns.  —  The United States Copyright Office has sided with cable companies in their fight against a Federal …

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Earlier Picks

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch: