Techmeme
January 25, 2019, 5:50 AM

Top News

Tom Krazit / GeekWire:
Microsoft acquires Citus Data, which develops an open-source extension for PostgreSQL that turns it into a distributed database  —  Databases continue to be one of the most competitive areas of cloud computing, and Microsoft strengthened its database story Thursday with the acquisition of Citus Data.
Ryan Whitwam / ExtremeTech:
DeepMind introduces AlphaStar AI, which won 10-1 in a series of StarCraft II matches against professional players  —  Humans tend to think we're adept at the games we create, but computers have proven time and time again that we're just not fast enough to stay on top.
Nathan Halverson / Reveal:
Unsealed documents show Facebook orchestrated a multi-year effort that duped children who played video games into spending their parents' money  —  Facebook orchestrated a multi-year effort that duped children and their parents out of money, in some cases hundreds or even thousands of dollars …
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 …
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.
Natasha Singer / New York Times:
Amazon's Rekognition mistakes women as men 19% of the time, and darker-skinned women as men 31% of the time, more than similar services from IBM and Microsoft  —  In new tests, Amazon's system had more difficulty identifying the gender of female and darker-skinned faces than similar services from IBM and Microsoft.
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
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Intel Q4: revenue of $18.7B, up 9% YoY, vs. $19.01B est., Client Computing Group revenue of $9.82B, up 10% YoY, vs. $10.01B est.; stock down 6%+ after hours  —  Shares of Intel stock fell as much as 8 percent on Thursday after the company reported lower-than-expected revenue for the fiscal fourth quarter and light guidance.
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 …
Richard Nieva / CNET:
Facebook says it will shut down its private photo-sharing app Moments on Feb. 25; users can export photos until May  —  Take a moment to remember Moments.  —  Facebook said on Thursday it was shuttering Moments, its standalone app for privately sharing photos with friends, in part because few people were using it.
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 …

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Earlier Picks

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Chris Welch / The Verge:
Chris Welch / The Verge: