Techmeme
January 4, 2017, 9:45 AM

Top News

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.
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.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Intel takes 15% stake in HERE to develop autonomous positioning systems based on Intel tech; terms undisclosed but stake worth $390M at 2015 HERE sale valuation  —  Here, the mapping and location services company once owned by Nokia and sold for €2.5 billion to a car-maker consortium of Audi …
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 …
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 …
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
Chinese bike-sharing startup Mobike raises $215M Series D led by Tencent and Warburg Pincus  —  Bicycle sharing services are primed to be a major focus for China's startup scene this year.  Now today, only the fourth day of 2017, comes the first mega-round for the space after Mobike announced its $215 million Series D funding.
More: Bloomberg and Reuters
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.
Alaina Yee / PCWorld:
Nick Statt / The Verge:

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More News

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Mark Wilson / Co.Design:

Earlier Picks

Mark Walton / Ars Technica UK:
Valentina Palladino / Ars Technica: