Techmeme
January 23, 2019, 2:05 AM

Top News

Apple:
Apple Pay expands to Target, Taco Bell, and other US chains and now covers 74 of the top 100 US merchants  —  Seventy-Four of the Top 100 US Merchants Now Accept Apple Pay  —  Target, Taco Bell, Hy-Vee supermarkets in the Midwest, Speedway convenience stores and Jack in the Box …
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Twitter begins limited rollout of a new web interface with a two-column layout, keyboard shortcuts, a dedicated emoji button, and a revised trends section  —  Don't be surprised if Twitter looks very different on the web in the near future.  The social network has started rolling …
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Google will retire classic Hangouts for G Suite customers in October, after its previous announcement that Hangouts would be split into Hangouts Chat, Meet apps  —  Google announced in March 2017 that it would split Hangouts, its cross-platform messaging service, into two core apps …
Wall Street Journal:
Analysis of millions of Glassdoor reviews finds 400+ companies, including SpaceX and Slack, have unusual single-month increases in mostly positive posts  —  Employers flood the ranking site with 5-star postings requested from enthusiastic staffers, leading to unusual spikes, a WSJ investigation found
Sean Lyngaas / CyberScoop:
DHS issues rare “emergency” directive ordering federal agencies to secure credentials for DNS records; sources: six agencies have seen malicious DNS activity  —  The Department of Homeland Security has issued a rare “emergency” directive ordering federal civilian agencies to secure …
Anthony D'Alessandro / Deadline:
The Motion Picture Association of America has added Netflix as a member, the first internet-based service to be added  —  UPDATED with Netflix officially joining: It's official, Netflix is a member of the MPAA.  The Washington, DC-based organization just dropped the following release:
Sam Levin / The Guardian:
US DoL files complaint against Oracle for discrimination against women and people of color, seeks $400M+ for workers who have suffered pay inequities  —  US labor department accuses company of rampant exclusion of black and Hispanic people in hiring and higher pay for white men
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google says 30M Chromebooks are used in education, up 5M from May 2018, and that 80M people use its G Suite for Education platform  —  Kicking off tomorrow is BETT, an annual conference and show for education.  Several companies have already announced the latest Chrome OS devices for the market …
Dan Primack / Axios:
Source: Zynga founder Mark Pincus is raising up to $700M for a new investment fund that will focus on publicly traded tech firms needing strategic restructuring  —  Zynga founder Mark Pincus is raising up to $700 million for a new investment fund that will focus on publicly-traded tech companies …
More: TechCrunch
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Google fined €50M by French watchdog CNIL under GDPR for alleged lack of transparency, info, and consent about ads personalization in Android's onboarding flow  —  The CNIL, the French data protection watchdog, has issued its first GDPR fine of $57 million (€50 million).
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft unveils Microsoft Classroom Pen, optimized for the Surface Go and sold in packs of 20 to schools, and 7 new PCs from Acer, Dell, Lenovo from $189-$320  —  Microsoft unveiled a big education push exactly a year ago today, and for 2019, the software maker is equally committed to challenging Chromebooks in a variety of ways.
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Viacom to acquire Pluto TV, a free, ad-supported streaming service, for $340M in cash; Pluto TV to operate as an independent subsidiary when the deal closes  —  Viacom announced Tuesday that it has agreed to buy Pluto TV — one of the fastest-growing free, ad-supported TV streaming services in the U.S. — for $340 million in cash.

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
Bringing local models and sandboxed tools to Windows and GitHub Copilot  —  GitHub Copilot will soon determine when a task is best handled by on-device AI and when it needs cloud-scale models.
Will Reed:
The best sales leaders aren't job hunting.  Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach.  —  Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.
Zoho:
Zoho Books now supports CT600 & Final Accounts Filing as an add-on in the FREE plan  —  Managing end-of-year filing for limited companies in the UK is often expensive and multi-layered.
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.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Meta & Microsoft's Claude Slowdown, His Agent Leaked His Banking Info, Don't Bully Your AI
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.
Sources:
Qualcomm's CEO on the coming AI phone supercycle
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.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Bringing Back Mammoths And Building Noah's Ark 2.0 | Colossal's Ben Lamm
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.
Great Chat:
The launch industrial complex
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Larry Ellison's Media Ambitions & Kevin Roose on AI's Biggest Gamble
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Training Data:
Google's AI Infrastructure Chief, Amin Vahdat, on the Physics & Economics of Frontier AI
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
 

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Earlier Picks

Wall Street Journal:
Takashi Mochizuki / Wall Street Journal:
Carolyn Said / San Francisco Chronicle: