Techmeme
January 4, 2017, 12:20 AM

Top News

Janko Roettgers / Variety:
Amazon partners with three Chinese manufacturers to launch Amazon Fire-powered 4K TVs, to be sold online and in select retail stores later this year  —  Amazon is now making its own TV — sort of, anyway: The e-commerce giant has teamed up with Seiki, Westinghouse and Element Electronics …
Larry Dignan / ZDNet:
Amazon pushes Alexa-everywhere strategy at CES, with integrations for Dish's Hopper DVR, Whirlpool appliances, Lenovo assistant devices, more  —  A bevy of vendors are integrating Amazon's Alexa digital assistant technology.  Artificial intelligence matters, but distribution, developers, and integration may matter more.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Zuckerberg's 2017 challenge is to meet and listen to people in all 50 states  —  After a year of criticism and allegations around fake news, censorship, and bias, Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg is using his yearly challenge to educate himself on the needs and problems of his users around the United States.
Mark Walton / Ars Technica UK:
Intel Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake review: minimal improvements mean high-end desktop CPU performance remains at a standstill  —  With identical performance to Skylake, Intel brings desktop performance to a standstill.  —  The Intel Core i7-7700K is what happens when a chip company stops trying.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
ODG unveils R-8 and R-9 consumer AR/VR glasses for around $1K and $1.8K respectively; both use Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 chip and are built on Android  —  On the heels of raising $58 million in December, the wearables company Osterhout Design Group — known for making smart glasses and other gear …
Alaina Yee / PCWorld:
Mollie Ruiz-Hopper / Windows Blog:
Acer debuts new high-end PCs including a 21-inch curved-screen gaming laptop with GeForce GTX 1080 GPU, eye tracking, 7th-gen Intel i7, 64GB RAM, $9K price tag  —  Ahead of CES 2017, Acer announced an impressive new lineup of Windows 10 PCs focused on performance and entertainment.
Shawn Knight / TechSpot:
Synaptics unveils new multi-factor authentication system that can combine fingerprint and facial recognition for smartphones, tablets, and laptops  —  Synaptics is looking to take the lead in mobile security in 2017.  After announcing an optical reader that can scan fingerprints through glass last month …
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Ken Yeung / VentureBeat:
Samsung unveils three QLED TVs with Chromecast-like functionality, pricing and availability TBD  —  Samsung today introduced its 2017 lineup of QLED televisions, which the company bills as having the “best picture quality — ever.”  While the Q7, Q8, and Q9 displays are markedly improved …
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Linksys launches Velop, a tri-band mesh Wi-Fi router system, at $499 for a three-unit bundle; preorders open today, available January 15th  —  It increasingly looks like the future of home Wi-Fi involves placing not one, but two or three routers throughout our homes to get the best possible signal.
Mark Wilson / Co.Design:
Mattel announces Aristotle, a $300 voice assistant for young children that doubles as a smart baby monitor and toy, shipping in June 2017  —  Her name is Aristotle, and she has eyes, and ears, inside your child's bedroom.  —  “What do you want to ask Google?” my wife asked our toddler after installing Google Home.
Mark Spoonauer / Laptop Mag:

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Earlier Picks

Valentina Palladino / Ars Technica:
Abner Li / 9to5Google: