Techmeme
October 11, 2017, 8:50 PM

Top News

Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
Facebook unveils Oculus Go, a new $199 standalone wireless VR headset, shipping early next year with Gear VR support, integrated spatial audio, and new optics  —  Onstage at Oculus Connect 4 in San Jose, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a new mobile headset called “Oculus Go.”
Oculus:
Facebook drops Oculus Rift's price with bundled Touch controllers to $399  —  Summer of Rift had a major impact on the VR industry, and the community's response showed that the appetite for best-in-class VR hardware and games is stronger than ever.  We want to continue getting VR into more people's hands …
Oculus:
Facebook debuts Rift Core 2.0 with redesigned Dash UI featuring dock-like hub and Home, the desktop-like space that can be shown to friends in VR, coming in Dec  —  Today, we announced Rift Core 2.0, a complete overhaul of Rift's core experience that lets people do more in VR than ever before.
Facebook:
Facebook plans Venues app for '18 to let users experience events with thousands of others, shows prototype that brings inside-out tracking to standalone headset  —  Today at its fourth developer conference in San Jose, Oculus announced its newest and most affordable VR headset, called Oculus Go.
Andrew Griffin / The Independent:
In an interview focusing on augmented reality, Tim Cook says the technology doesn't exist to make quality AR smart glasses  —  In a wide-ranging interview, the CEO of the biggest tech company in the world explains how AR will change our lives, and why he thinks the world is actually getting better
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Amazon's Alexa can now recognize different voices and give personalized responses  —  Your Echo just got smart enough to tell you apart from the people you live with  —  The battle of the smart speakers has become a constant back and forth between Amazon and Google.
Aamna Mohdin / Quartz:
Apple's VP of diversity Denise Young Smith says she is “a little” frustrated that “diversity” is “tagged to the people of color, or the women, or the LGBT”  —  Denise Young Smith is Silicon Valley's most powerful black woman.  “My name was not talked about prior to maybe 5 years ago,” she says.
Bloomberg:
Qualcomm fined $773M by Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission for violating antitrust rules for at least seven years  —  Qualcomm Inc. was fined a record NT$23.4 billion ($773 million) by Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission in the latest blow from regulators over the way the U.S. company prices mobile phone chips and patents.
Devindra Hardawar / Engadget:
Amazon unveils new waterproof Kindle Oasis with a 7-inch screen and support for Audible audiobooks, available to order now starting at $249.99, ships October 31  —  We called Amazon's last Kindle Oasis “the perfect e-reader for the one percent.”  That still describes the new Oasis, which Amazon is officially unveiling today.
New York Times:
John Mannes / TechCrunch:
ROSS Intelligence raises $8.7M Series A to help legal teams search case law using machine learning  —  Armed with an understanding of machine learning, ROSS Intelligence is going after LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters for ownership of legal research.  The startup, founded in 2015 by Andrew Arruda …
More: BetaKit
Scott Martin / Wall Street Journal:
Brilliant, which makes a $199 smart home hub, raises $21M Series A led by August Capital  —  Funding was led by August Capital  —  Talk about a lightbulb moment.  —  Aaron Emigh was taking some time off after Shopkick, a startup he co-founded, was acquired for about $250 million.
More: PR Newswire and FinSMEsThanks:@emay916
Matt Weinberger / Business Insider:
Google says it will permanently remove all top touch functionality on forthcoming Google Home Mini smart speaker  —  Google is permanently disabling a feature on the forthcoming Google Home Mini smart speaker, after a reviewer discovered that it was surreptitiously recording his conversations without his knowledge or consent.
More: Android Police and The VergeThanks:@lexnfx

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify's new AI commerce stack  —  Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.
Zoho:
Get your favorite apps talking to Zoho Sign with Zapier  —  Your business didn't come together overnight.  It's something you've built, refined, and fine-tuned over time.  Every tool you use has a purpose …
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

Grit:
How Brands Stay Visible When AI Decides | Profound CEO James Cadwallader
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
The coming AI security crisis (and what to do about it) | Sander Schulhoff
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:
OpenAI's Potential, Google's Speedy Model, Copilot Hits Turbulence
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:
Why Roomba Died + Tech Predictions for 2026 + A Hard Forkin' Xmas Song
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.
Access:
Betting on reality with Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:50 PM ET, October 11, 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

Tony Romm / Recode:

Earlier Picks

Eric Newcomer / Bloomberg:
Saheli Roy Choudhury / CNBC:
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
Catalin Cimpanu / BleepingComputer.com: