Techmeme
January 24, 2019, 1:35 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.
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 …
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
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
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
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google partners with Sony Pictures Imageworks, Sony's visual effects and animation studio, to launch an open source render manager called OpenCue  —  Google today announced that it has partnered with Sony Pictures Imageworks, Sony's visual effects and animation studio, to launch OpenCue, an open source render manager.
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 …
More: Tech.eu and PE Hub Blog
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
In a video posted online, Xiaomi teases a working prototype of a phone with a double-folding display and a more symmetrical design than Samsung's foldable phone  —  China's Xiaomi has become the latest smartphone maker to tease a folding smartphone, dropping the below video clip of its president …
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Jyve, which aims to connect workers with retail companies to fill gig economy jobs, comes out of stealth, says it has raised $35M in funding  —  The so-called gig economy shows no signs of slowing — in fact, the opposite is likely true.  According to a recent Gallup poll …
More: TechCrunch
South China Morning Post:
Research firm says China had 713 VC deals in Q4, down 25% YoY, worth $18.3B total, down 12% YoY, amid cooling valuations and tighter hiring for tech startups  —  - The number of venture capital deals in China dropped 25 per cent year on year to 713 in the fourth quarter
Facebook:

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify's new AI commerce stack  —  Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI.
Zoho:
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control  —  Picture this: It's Monday morning.  You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Grit:
How Evan Spiegel Is Building the Future of Computing
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Acquired:
10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis)
Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.
Subscribe to Acquired.
Lenny's Podcast:
Why humans are AI's biggest bottleneck (and what's coming in 2026) | Alexander Embiricos (OpenAI Codex Product Lead)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's 2026 Priority, Disney's AI Play, Datacenter Buildout Trouble
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:
Australia Kicks Kids Off Social Media + Is the A.I. Water Issue Fake? + Hard Fork Wrapped
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:35 PM ET, January 24, 2019.

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

CNBC:

Earlier Picks

Chris Welch / The Verge:
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Jim Waterson / The Guardian:
Paresh Dave / Reuters: