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January 8, 2019, 10:30 PM
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| Joseph Cox / Motherboard: |
Investigation shows how easy and affordable it is to obtain cellphone customers' real-time location data, as T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T peddle it to middlemen — T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T are selling access to their customers' location data, and that data is ending up in the hands …
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The Verge, Engadget, iMore, Mercury News, iDownloadBlog.com, 9to5Mac, TmoNews, The Register, iPhone Hacks, Gizmodo, Ars Technica, Slashdot, and Boing Boing
| Dieter Bohn / The Verge: |
Google makes over a dozen announcements for Google Assistant at CES, including Google Assistant Connect for third-party developers and flight check-ins — Today, Google is showing off auto-translation on smart display speakers, letting you naturally talk to each other with the speaker acting as the translator automatically.
More:
The Keyword, CNET, Android Police, XDA Developers, Thurrott, ZDNet, CNET, Chrome Unboxed, TechCrunch, Search Engine Journal, Droid Life, GeekWire, 9to5Google, TechCrunch, 9to5Google, and TechCrunch
Tweets: @backlon, @starfire2258, and @ohmdee
| Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch: |
Google Assistant is coming to Google Maps on iOS and Android today, will help users with navigation, music, and replying to texts, now with auto-punctuation — We've known for a while now that Google Assistant (the company's voice powered AI, a la Siri or Alexa) would eventually be built right into Google Maps.
More:
9to5Google, XDA Developers, Thurrott, TechHive, Engadget, Gizmodo, GeekWire, The Verge, Android Beat, and iPhone in Canada Blog
| Lauren Goode / Wired: |
Google debuts Interpreter Mode in Google Assistant for smart displays and speakers to translate languages in real time for people in the same physical space — OVER THE PAST year Google has been making its virtual assistant, the eponymous Google Assistant, more capable of handling …
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The Verge, Gizmodo, Quartz, Search Engine Land, The Verge, Mashable, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Engadget, CNET, Business Insider, and The Verge
Tweets: @shannon_liao, @laurengoode, @ohmdee, @wired, and @benpopper
| Nick Statt / The Verge: |
| Mark Zuckerberg: |
Mark Zuckerberg says his challenge for 2019 is to host a series of public discussions about the future of technology in society — Every year I take on a personal challenge to learn something new. I've built an AI for my home, run 365 miles, visited every US state, read 25 books, and learned Mandarin.
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The Verge, TechCrunch, Business Insider, Quartz, Telegraph, Recode, GeekWire, The Guardian, Gizmodo, Vanity Fair, CNN, Adweek, Reuters, CNBC, Engadget, Axios, CNET, Washington Post, Mashable, and VentureBeat
Tweets: @felixsalmon, @alexeheath, @joshconstine, @joshconstine, @sarahfrier, and @rmac18
| Axios: |
Amazon is quietly piloting a program for brands like Folgers to pay to send free samples to Amazon users, who are likely to enjoy them based on order history — Amazon is quietly piloting a program to let brands like Maybelline and Folgers pay to send free samples to consumers …
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CNET, CNBC, The Verge, Quartz, Marketing Land, BGR, InvestorPlace, Lifehacker, TechSpot, and PYMNTS.com
| Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC: |
Over a dozen ex-Facebook employees detail how the company's leaders and stacked ranking performance reviews foster a culture where any dissent is discouraged — - More than a dozen former Facebook employees detailed how the company's leadership and its performance review system has created a culture where any dissent is discouraged.
More:
Business Insider. Tweets: @sal19, @carnage4life, @mattrosoff, and @lorakolodny. Thanks:@mattrosoff
| Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: |
Self-driving vehicle startup Udelv debuts the Newton, its delivery van using Baidu's Apollo platform, and says some Walmarts in AZ will trial deliveries with it — Udelv has had an eventful 2018 — and that's putting it lightly. In September, the Carson, California autonomous car startup inked … | Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: |
IBM unveils its first commercial quantum computer, a 20-qubit system that combines quantum and classical computing parts but is still lacking breakthrough speed — At CES, IBM today announced its first commercial quantum computer for use outside of the lab.| Theodore Schleifer / Recode: |
Sources: self-driving startup Aurora is raising $500M+ at a $2B+ valuation in a round led by Sequoia — Aurora's appeal is predicated on three well-credentialed founders from Google, Tesla, and Uber. — The startup Aurora — which is not yet two years old but has made waves …
More:
SiliconANGLE, Financial Times, TechCrunch, and Silicon Valley Business …
| Edgar Alvarez / Engadget: |
Twitter says it is launching a program to let a limited set of users try out new conversational features with their followers in the coming weeks — Twitter is launching a new program to let users reshape how conversations on its site look and feel, the company announced today in an interview with Engadget at CES 2019.| Rita Liao / TechCrunch: |
Chinese startup Nreal unveils Light, consumer AR glasses about the size of a pair of sunglasses, slated to launch mid-2019 for ~$1,000 — A former Magic Leap engineer believes the problem with most consumer-facing augmented headsets on the market is their bulky size.
More:
Digital Trends, Forbes, PR Newswire, Engadget, CNET, VentureBeat, and MSPoweruser
| Sarah Frier / Bloomberg: |
Customers have been annoyed by Samsung's deal to pre-install Facebook on devices, including Galaxy phones, because the app can only be disabled, not deleted — - Galaxy owners take to Twitter to complain about permanent app — Pre-install deals are common, but privacy concerns are rising| Kate Rooney / CNBC: |
Plaid, which links US bank accounts to popular fintech apps like Venmo and Robinhood, is buying competitor Quovo, source says for ~$200M — - Plaid, which links one quarter of U.S. bank accounts to popular fintech apps, is buying a similar data company called Quovo.
More:
Plaid - Blog, Bloomberg, Business Insider, TechCrunch, and Reuters
Tweets: @kr00ney, @plaid, and @julieverhage
| Taylor Soper / GeekWire: |
Report: VC funding in US startups reached $99.5B in 2018, the highest since 2000, in a total of 5,536 deals, the lowest since 2013 — U.S. startups are raising investment dollars at levels unseen since the dot-com era. — Venture capital funding in U.S. companies reached $99.5 billion in 2018 …
More:
CB Insights, Bloomberg, SiliconANGLE, Financial Times, and Silicon Republic
| Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
Amid a legal fight in LA over alleged data-mining practices, IBM's Weather Company unveils hyperlocal weather forecasts, which tap users' smartphone sensor data — While IBM is getting sued by the city of Los Angeles, accusing it of covertly mining user data in the Weather Channel app in the US … | Taylor Lorenz / The Atlantic: |
Instagram accounts were allegedly coordinating sharing of child porn using hashtags, then a viral campaign spotlighted it, and finally Instagram banned the tags — A hashtag war has been brewing on Instagram between users who appear to be trading child pornography and the memers intent on stopping them.
More:
The Next Web and Firstpost
Tweets: @taylorlorenz, @joshconstine, @taylorlorenz, @paulbisceglio, @taylorlorenz, @taylorlorenz, and @taylorlorenz
| Melissa Eddy / New York Times: |
Twenty-year-old German man admits to stealing and publishing data on hundreds of lawmakers, journalists, and other figures from every party except far-right AfD — BERLIN — A 20-year-old German student took advantage of passwords as weak as “Iloveyou” and “1234” to hack into online accounts …
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Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Mashable, BusinessLIVE, CyberScoop, Axios, Gizmodo, Business Insider, and The Verge
Tweets: @josephfcox and @nytimestech
| Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge: |
Comcast now offers Xfinity customers additional security protection on home networks for $5.99/month with xFi Advanced Security, which can quarantine devices — Better internet protection, for a price — Comcast has announced a new service as part of its Xfinity xFi internet platform at CES 2019 …
More:
corporate.comcast.com, TechCrunch, TechHive, Engadget, VentureBeat, CyberScoop, and PYMNTS.com
| Ron Miller / TechCrunch: |
Sources: Amazon has acquired Israeli disaster recovery service CloudEndure for around $200M — Amazon has reportedly acquired Israeli disaster recovery startup CloudEndure. Neither company has responded to our request for confirmation, but we have heard from multiple sources that the deal has happened.
More:
SiliconANGLE, Globes Online, and GeekWire
| Andrew Ross Sorkin / New York Times: |
Lambda School, which trains students online to be software engineers in exchange for a share of future income, raises $30M Series B from Bedrock, GV, YC, others — Income Sharing Agreements are gaining the attention of higher education and Wall Street. One early success story is getting a boost from venture capital.
More:
EdSurge and Axios
Tweets: @nytimes, @neill4illinois, @antoniogm, @zeynep, @nickconfessore, @lpolovets, @ganeumann, @ycombinator, @bcappelbaum, @mattyglesias, and @austenallred
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