Techmeme: Lime pursues car sharing in Seattle, where rentable electric scooters are banned, and says it plans to add electric vehicles as another option to its app “soon” (Monica Nickelsburg/GeekWire)

Top News

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Twitter says it's testing a home screen toggle to switch between latest and top tweets timelines with a small number of iOS users; toggle previously in settings — Twitter is digging one of its most important new features out of its settings and putting it within easy reach.

More: Digital Trends, Gizmodo, Social Media Today, CNET, and Engadget

Tweets: @twitter, @jack, @kayvz, and @caseynewton

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Twitter's spam reporting tool now lets users specify more details, like if the account is fake, using unrelated hashtags, or sharing malicious links — Twitter is adding more nuance to its spam reporting tools, the company announced today. Instead of simply flagging a tweet as posting spam …

More: The Verge, 9to5Mac, Neowin, Adweek, Gizmodo, Engadget, Android Police, and Fortune

Tweets: @twittersafety, @urbanstrata, @josh_emerson, @jkmartindale, and @paperghost

New York Times:

A look at the internal backlash at Google over its handling of sexual harassment claims, with 1,500+ employees planning to walk out in protest on Thursday — SAN FRANCISCO — Google is struggling to contain a growing internal backlash over its handling of sexual harassment and its workplace culture.

More: The Verge, CNN, Gizmodo, CNET, and CNBC

Tweets: @googlewalkout, @karaswisher, @googlewalkout, @googlewalkout, @dodaistewart, @puiwingtam, @inyoungk, and @ktbenner

Ina Fried / Axios:

Source: Rich DeVaul, a director at X, Alphabet's moonshot unit, left the company today following reports of sexual harassment, did not receive an exit package

More: ABC News, Axios, Ars Technica, Telegraph, Forbes, Newser, Bloomberg, NBC Bay Area, BBC, The Verge, Politico, Silicon Valley Business …, The Hill, New York Times, Business Insider, Fortune, Slate, CNBC, Financial Times, Engadget, 9to5Google, CNN, and CNET

Tweets: @inafried and @inafried

James Vincent / The Verge:

iRobot partners with Google and will share spatial data from Roombas to help improve Google's smart home experience by mapping rooms — The two companies are working together to leverage spatial data generated by iRobot's robovacs — Google and iRobot have announced they're working together …

More: iRobot MediaKit, VentureBeat, SiliconANGLE, CNET, KnowTechie, Xconomy, TechSpot, Digital Trends, 9to5Google, Engadget, and Investor's Business Daily

Tweets: @irobot, @om, @econompic, @basche42, @mathewi, @rachelmetz, and @angebassa

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:

Apple says its T2 security chip, found in the 2018 Mac laptops, disconnects the device's microphone from the rest of the hardware whenever the lid is closed — Apple's newest MacBooks include a new feature that makes it virtually impossible for hackers or spies to eavesdrop on your microphone.

More: 9to5Mac, KnowTechie, The Next Web, and iPhone in Canada Blog. Tweets: @stevekopack

Ben Lovejoy / 9to5Mac:

Apple's newly unveiled products start at higher price points, with the 2018 Macbook Air 128GB model starting 20% higher, continuing Apple's push into higher ASP — When Apple launched the iPhone X, it did more than just change the design language of the iPhone: it also offered a whole new pricing level.

More: BGR and iMore

Tweets: @vladsavov, @howardlindzon, @rodrigoaraujo, @itsericp, @benlovejoy, @luke_anders3, @parmy, @bryfitz, @pierce, @mims, @cmaciasjimenez, @snitstwits, @bill_mcalonan, @rodrigoaraujo, @cbirdsong, @rodrigoaraujo, @rosewoodat5th, @epaga, and @stroughtonsmith

Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch:

Xiaomi sends cease and desist letter to Lyft, saying it will pursue legal action if Lyft continues to modify scooters originally manufactured by Xiaomi — Xiaomi, the electric scooter manufacturer that a handful of the shared electric scooter services in the U.S. (like ones from Lyft …

More: Mashable and TechNode

Abner Li / 9to5Google:

Google announces account security updates, including requiring JavaScript be enabled when using a Google sign-in page in order to run a risk assessment — October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month and Google is announcing a slew of new features related to the sign-in process and account usage.

More: Google Online Security Blog and ZDNet

Brian Heater / TechCrunch:

Fitbit posts a net loss of $2.1M in Q3, down from $113.4M a year ago, on revenue of $393.6M, as smartwatches accounted for 49% of company's total revenue — Fitbit is slowly righting its financial ship, courtesy of a successful push into smartwatch category.

More: Fitbit, Inc., Reuters, Engadget, and ZDNet. Tweets: @fqure

NDTV Gadgets 360:

WhatsApp's VP Chris Daniels confirms WhatsApp will put ads in its ‘Status’ section, but declined to provide a timeline — Clearing the air on Facebook's monetisation efforts towards WhatsApp, the mobile messaging service's Vice President Chris Daniels on Wednesday said the company …

More: The Economic Times, Android Police, Outlook India, Moneycontrol, The Next Web, Android Authority, NewsX, Entrackr, The Financial Express, and PhoneArena. Tweets: @mattnavarra

Business Insider:

Sources: Apple held multiple acquisition talks with Leap Motion, beginning in 2013 and most recently in spring 2018, when Apple made an offer between $30M-$50M — - Apple has offered to buy augmented reality startup Leap Motion multiple times, most recently in the spring of 2018.

More: VentureBeat, SiliconANGLE, 9to5Mac, Patently Apple, InvestorPlace, iPhone in Canada Blog, iPhone Hacks, and MacRumors

Tweets: @drnovac, @kifleswing, @iansherr, @jasonlk, @netmobz, and @lexnfx. Thanks:@stevetweedie

Washington Post:

Profile of Gab co-founder Andrew Torba days after Gab went offline and its CTO and co-founder Ekrem Buyukkaya quit following “attacks from the American media” — Like many young entrepreneurs drawn to California's technological gold rush, Andrew Torba brought a familiar mix of smarts …

More: HuffPost and Gothamist

Tweets: @drewharwell, @lizzadwoskin, and @emmersbrown

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Amazon launches the Music Skill API for Alexa, allowing developers to stream songs from online services to Alexa devices and Amazon Echo speakers in the US — Spicing up voice apps on Amazon's Alexa assistant with jammin' tunes just got a whole lot easier.

More: Amazon Developer Services and SlashGear

Khari Johnson / VentureBeat:

Amazon says Alexa can now give information about federal and gubernatorial elections and that it is working with AP and Ballotpedia for poll times and results — Amazon today announced a series of updates to Alexa's knowledge base so the intelligent assistant can deliver helpful information ahead of …

More: US Day One Blog, The Verge, and CNET

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Google introduces “Emoji Minis” in Gboard for Android and iOS, which uses machine learning to create customizable emoji-sized stickers based on users' selfies — Last summer, Google introduced its own take on Bitmoji with the launch of “Mini” stickers in its keyboard app, Gboard …

More: The Keyword, KnowTechie, XDA Developers, Digital Trends, Android Central, and AndroidGuys

Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:

Sources: after canceling Rift 2, a “complete redesign”, Oculus now pursuing a more modest Rift update, possibly called Rift S, to release as early as next year — Facebook's virtual reality arm may soon find itself in the unfamiliar position of playing catch-up with hardware competitors.

More: UploadVR and yivian.com

Tweets: @lucasmtny, @tojiro, @lucasmtny, @lucasmtny, and @lucasmtny

Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:

Facebook says it will move Workplace by Facebook, its Slack rival, to its own domain in 2019, Workplace.com, to appease businesses' fears about data security — - Workplace by Facebook, the company's enterprise business, is moving onto a website domain separate from Facebook.com in an effort …

More: Business Insider. Tweets: @mgsiegler and @medvidekpu

Monica Nickelsburg / GeekWire:

Lime pursues car sharing in Seattle, where rentable electric scooters are banned, and says it plans to add electric vehicles as another option to its app “soon” — Lime wants to add cars to its Seattle mobility fleet, expanding beyond the bright green, rentable bikes the company currently operates in the city.

More: Digital Trends, CNET, Smart Cities Dive, Engadget, The Information, and Fortune

Kara Swisher / New York Times:

Social platforms operate with sloppy disregard of the consequences of awful speech, unwilling to affect their bottom lines, and the negligence includes funders — This is what the internet has come to: thugs like Mohammed bin Salman funding tech companies to host the vitriol of thugs like Cesar Sayoc and Robert Bowers.

More: CNN

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:

Fast, affordable law for startups — Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better. We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts. Join the waitlist for early access!

Equals:

Stop vibe coding analytics — Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards. Build once, iterate for years.

Zoho:

Zoho Mail MCP: Make your inbox work for you — Maya is the head of operations at a 500-person B2B software company. She's sharp, she's busy, and she starts every morning the same way-with her coffee, laptop, inbox.Not to work.

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:

Anthropic's Mythos is Back, OpenAI Releases GPT 5.6, Apple's Price Increases

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:

'The Daily' and 'The Opinions': How A.I. Is Changing Loneliness and Taste

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.

The Upstarts Podcast:

Writer's May Habib: Building AI Tools For Corporate 'Normal People' The Labs Leave Behind

Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.

Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.

The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:

A Nick, Dick, and Paul Buffet!

Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.

Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.

Great Chat:

How much data do we actually want about our bodies?

A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.

Subscribe to Great Chat.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI

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.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:50 AM ET, November 1, 2018.

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.