Techmeme
April 19, 2017, 5:55 PM

Top News

Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Facebook copying Snapchat's features reduces the competition to just who has the stronger network, illustrating how monopolies are bad for innovation  —  The shamelessness was breathtaking.  —  Having told a few jokes, summarized his manifesto, and acknowledged the victim of the so-called …
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft makes its Wunderlist successor, To-Do, available in preview as part of Office 365; Wunderlist will “eventually” be retired  —  Microsoft's ‘Project Cheshire,’ the successor to its Wunderlist to-do app, is now in public preview for many Office 365 users on a variety of devices.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Facebook updates its Surround 360 camera lineup with two models: larger x24 and smaller x6, both capable of shooting 8K video, with pricing and availability TBD  —  The freedom of VR with the fidelity of real life  —  Facebook today announced the second generation of its Surround 360 video camera design …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Richard Nieva / CNET:
Inside Building 8, Facebook's moonshot lab working on a brain interface that translates thoughts into words and a project to use skin vibrations to “hear” words  —  The social network finally unveils what its secretive Building 8 hardware lab has been working on for the past year.
Chance Miller / 9to5Google:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify brings its half-price student tier to 33 new countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Japan, and New Zealand  —  Hot on the heels of Pandora's public launch of its on-demand streaming service, Pandora Premium, rival Spotify is looking to make its service more appealing …
Tom Phillips / Eurogamer.net:
Sources: Nintendo to launch a mini version of its SNES console in time for Christmas 2017, after the success of its mini NES console  —  Major factor for NES mini discontinuation.  —  Nintendo will follow up its smash hit NES microconsole with a mini version of the SNES, sources close to the company have confirmed to Eurogamer.
Jeffrey Dastin / Reuters:
Amazon brings its Amazon Lex platform out of preview, letting developers build chat features into apps  —  Amazon.com Inc's chief technology officer is working toward a day when people can control almost any piece of software with their voice.  —  The company on Wednesday rolled …
Tony Romm / Recode:
Amazon, Facebook, Google, Snap, and 150+ more file brief in federal court arguing against Trump's revised travel ban  —  Amazon, Facebook, Google and Snap are among those filing.  —  Amazon, Facebook, Google, Snap and more than 150 other tech companies told a federal court in Virginia today …
Elizabeth Weise / USA Today:
Trump's newly signed executive order to reform H-1B visas may make outsourcing less viable but could bring more educated and better paid tech workers to US  —  SAN FRANCISCO — H-1B visa holders could get a lot more expensive and a lot better educated under a new executive order signed …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini  —  Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator.  Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
Warp:
The #1 Coding Agent  —  #1 on Terminal-Bench.  71% on SWE-bench Verified.  Trusted by 600K+ devs.  Try the top agentic dev tool for $1 for 1st month with code TECHMEME.
Zoho:
Boost technician productivity on the go with the Zoho FSM mobile app  —  Life on the move: Inside a technician's daily workflowIn field service, unpredictability is part of the job.  One moment, a technician is on schedule.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Tech Brew Ride Home:
Meta's Smart Headware Push
Tech news headlines every day. 15 minutes and you're up to date. From Tech Brew, Morning Brew's tech hub.
Subscribe to Tech Brew Ride Home.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
How the head of Obsidian went from superfan to CEO
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Grit:
Building High-Impact Sales Teams | Dan Lee and Nooks
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour (Reforge)
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:
Can The Web Survive Generative AI? -- With Matthew Prince
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.
Hard Fork:
GPT-5 Backlash + Perplexity C.E.O. Aravind Srinivas on the Browser Wars + Hot Mess Express
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:55 PM ET, April 19, 2017.

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.

More News

Sam Byford / The Verge:
Rich McCormick / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Andrew Dalton / Engadget:
Serdar Yegulalp / InfoWorld:
Rich McCormick / The Verge:
Dan Seifert / The Verge: