Techmeme
November 8, 2018, 7:20 PM

Top News

Sundar Pichai / The Keyword:
Google says it will make arbitration optional for individual sexual harassment claims, provide more info about investigations, expand training, and more  —  At Google we try hard to build a workplace that supports our employees and empowers them to do their best work.
David Gelles / New York Times:
Sundar Pichai on the walkout, company culture, and how, China aside, Google already operates in countries with censorship laws like “right to be forgotten”  —  Growing up in India, he slept on the floor of a house without a refrigerator.  Today, the chief executive …
Michelle Castillo / CNBC:
Disney says its new streaming service will be called Disney+ and will launch in the US in late 2019  —  - Disney's new streaming service, Disney+, will be a home for its past titles and original series, including new content from the Marvel and Star Wars franchises.
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Portal and Portal+ review: they work great for video calls using Facebook Messenger, but as general purpose smart displays, they lag behind the competition  —  Facebook's video calling device demands lots of trust for little return  —  It's not often that a new gadget gets announced and I don't immediately want to get my hands on it.
Megan Wollerton / CNET:
Facebook Portal and Portal+ video chat devices go on sale on Thursday on Portal online store, Amazon, and Best Buy  —  Facebook on Wednesday announced retail availability for its Portal Plus and Portal smart displays on the Portal online store, Amazon and Best Buy.
Facebook:
João Carrasqueira / Neowin:
Microsoft says it is working on a fix after a problem with its activation server causes some Windows 10 Pro PCs to deactivate their licenses  —  Some Windows 10 users are having problems with their Pro licenses today, as users on the company's Community Forums and Reddit are reporting …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Amazon makes the Alexa app, previously available on select laptops, available to all Windows 10 users via Microsoft Store  —  Available in the Microsoft Store  —  Amazon is releasing its Alexa app for Windows 10 today.  While the app has been available on select Windows 10 laptops recently …
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Xiaomi opens its first UK store in London and rolls out the flagship Mi 8 Pro, alongside other products, as it continues its push into Europe  —  Xiaomi marked its official entry into the U.K. today with the launch of the Mi 8 Pro, a smartphone with a 6.21-inch screen, alongside a range of other products …
Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:
YouTube finally arrives on the Nintendo Switch, available to download now, following Hulu  —  Nintendo has sold over 22 million Switch consoles since launch, with plans to sell another 20 million this financial year.  —  That said, Nintendo hasn't seemed too focused on building out its portfolio of non-gaming apps.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Samsung teases foldable phone that acts as a phone when closed and a tablet when opened, says mass production will begin within months  —  Our foldable future is here  —  Samsung has been teasing its foldable smartphone for weeks, and now the company has unveiled it for the first time today.
Conversations with Tyler:
Eric Schmidt on growing up in Italy, years at Bell Labs, PARC, and Sun, scaling Google, polarization on social platforms, how tech will shape the future, more  —  Subscribe: Apple Podcasts / SoundCloud / RSS  —  The son of an economist, Eric Schmidt eschewed his father's profession …
Dara Kerr / CNET:
Bird unveils a new feature called Community Mode, which lets people report badly parked and damaged scooters to the company  —  Scooter company Bird is looking for tattletales.  —  It unveiled a new feature on Thursday called Community Mode, which lets people report badly parked and damaged scooters to the company.
Tweets: @mcwm.  Thanks:@darakerr
CNBC:
Yelp reports Q3 revenue of $241M, missing analyst estimates of $245M, and issues weak Q4 guidance; stock down more than 28% after hours  —  - The company reported revenue of $241 million for the quarter, just shy of analyst projections of $245 million.  — “We do not believe there was a single …
More: Yelp
Lora Kolodny / CNBC:
Tesla names board member and Telstra CFO Robyn Denholm as Chairman of the Board, replacing Elon Musk; Denholm to leave Telstra to work as Tesla chair full-time  —  - Tesla delivered its largest quarterly profit in the company's history in the third quarter of 2018, reporting about $6.8 billion …
David Streitfeld / New York Times:
President of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers says Amazon's AbeBooks has apologized and will not drop booksellers as scheduled on Nov. 30  —  SAN FRANCISCO — A worldwide strike by antiquarian booksellers against an Amazon subsidiary proved successful after two days …

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work  —  Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.
Zoho:
Update on Node.js vulnerabilities CVE-2026-111497, CVE-2026-105482, CVE-2026-105483 and CVE-2026-106069  —  Overview On October 21, 2026, Node.js announced security releases for the 26.x, 24.x and 22.x release lines to fix multiple vulnerabilities.
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.
WebBrain:
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser  —  Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox.  Use local models or your preferred AI provider.  Get started free.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Big Tech's Ugly Week, Getting Rich At Anthropic, AI Costs Plunge
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.
Machine Gods:
OpenAI's Latest Discoveries Spark a Backlash + Help! My Kid Hates AI
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
Subscribe to Machine Gods.
The Upstarts Podcast:
The Accidental YC Founder Solving AI's GPU Crisis | SF Compute's Evan Conrad
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.
Cheeky Pint:
Why Sam Altman is against a single superintelligence
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
Great Chat:
The case for AI optimism
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.
Sources:
Tobi Lütke on the AI agent revolution and future of Shopify
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:20 PM ET, November 8, 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.

More News

Earlier Picks

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: