Techmeme
January 24, 2019, 4:10 PM

Top News

CNBC:
Sources: Apple laid off 200+ employees this week from Project Titan; Apple acknowledges it has restructured its autonomous systems tech team  —  - Apple dismissed just over 200 employees from Project Titan this week, its stealthy autonomous vehicle initiative, people familiar with the group told CNBC.
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Jack Dorsey's recent media tour is largely performative, substituting talking for doing, masking Twitter's slow response to many of its issues  —  Jack Dorsey has a lot to say — but he has more to do  —  Jack Dorsey is talking.  —  He is talking to the Huffington Post's Ashley Feinberg.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft makes the Office suite available via the Mac App Store, with users needing an Office 365 subscription  —  An Office 365 subscription is required for most apps  —  Microsoft is making its Office suite available on Apple's Mac App Store today.  The software giant originally promised …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Sonos is planning to launch wireless, over-ear headphones with the ability to work with multiple digital assistants next year, for $300 or more  —  - Audio device maker seeks new markets after disappointing IPO  — Company targets growing but crowded market that includes Apple
Nate Lanxon / Bloomberg:
Bing appears to be accessible in China again, as sources say the earlier block was due to a technical error rather than censorship  —  Internet users in mainland China have begun to report that Microsoft Corp.'s Bing search engine is accessible again after outages in the country persisted for many hours Thursday.
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
Verizon's Visible, which offers unlimited text, voice, and data for $40/month, announces Android compatibility and starts selling Galaxy S9, S9+, and iPhones  —  When Verizon stealthily launched a new startup called Visible last year, it operated under a bring-your-own-device model …
Wall Street Journal:
Source: US pressed Chinese tech companies to show their autonomy by giving an example of resisting a data request from the Chinese government, but they couldn't  —  Chairman of Chinese telecom firm contends Huawei is being unfairly targeted  —  The chairman of embattled telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co …
Bloomberg:
FOIA inquiry: Google urged US Labor Board to drop an Obama-era protection for staff organizing over work email; Google says doing so was part of a legal defense  —  While Google publicly supported employees who protested company policies, it quietly asked the government to narrow the right to organize over work email
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Netherlands-based Geophy raises $33M Series B for its AI-based commercial real estate appraisal platform, to expand in the US and Europe  —  Corporate real estate (CRE) appraisals are fraught with peril — not to mention subjectivity.  The average gap between a standard estimate …
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Humio, which provides real-time log analysis for $200+ per month, raises $9M Series A led by Accel and says Bloomberg and Microsoft are clients  —  Humio, a startup that provides a real-time log analysis service for on-premises and cloud infrastructures, today announced that it has raised a $9 million Series A round led by Accel.
More: Tech.eu and FinSMEs
Corbin Davenport / Android Police:
Google Express quietly removes Walmart as a retail partner, leaving Target as the only major partner for the beleaguered delivery service  —  When Google Express re-launched in 2017 as a free service, it had two major retail partners — Walmart and Target.  Both companies have a massive amount …
More: 9to5GoogleTweets: @rdrv3
Robert McMillan / Wall Street Journal:
Inside Google's 27-person in-house counterespionage team, the Threat Analysis Group, which tracks 200+ hacker groups, many of which are linked to US adversaries  —  Google likely has 'the most useful data set available to any private company for tracking state adversaries and intelligence services,' an expert says

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More News

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

CNBC:
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Jim Waterson / The Guardian: