Techmeme
March 27, 2019, 12:05 PM

Top News

Cade Metz / New York Times:
Three pioneers of AI, Geoffrey Hinton, Yann LeCun, and Yoshua Bengio, win the $1M Turing Award for their work on neural networks  —  SAN FRANCISCO — In 2004, Geoffrey Hinton doubled down on his pursuit of a technological idea called a neural network.  —  It was a way for machines …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Memo: Microsoft's marketing chief Chris Capossela tells employees not to engage in any public-facing April Fool's Day pranks because of “unwanted news cycles”  —  No Clippy pranks this year  —  Everyone hates April Fools' Day, and Microsoft is taking a stand against its own corporate pranks.
Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal:
Apple says it is “sorry” that a “small number of users” are still experiencing issues with third-generation butterfly keyboards in newer MacBooks  —  Nop, I havn'tt fogottttn how tto witt.  No did my ditto go on vacattion.  —  You s, tto sha tth pain of using …
Jules Wang / Android Police:
Google Podcasts is auto-transcribing podcast episodes and using those transcripts as metadata to help listeners search for shows  —  Google Podcasts is now automatically generating transcripts of episodes and is using them as metadata to help listeners search for shows, even if they don't know the title or when it was published.
James Vincent / The Verge:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Apple News+ could accelerate the demise of news outlets by decimating their revenue and disrupting publishers' relationships with readers  —  At the mercy of a new algorithm  —  Apple doesn't care about news, it cares about recurring revenue.  That's why publishers are crazy to jump into bed with Apple News+.
Reuters:
Sources: Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun is seeking to sell Grindr, the popular gay dating app, after a US govt panel raised concerns about its ownership  —  (Reuters) - Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech Co Ltd is seeking to sell Grindr LLC, the popular gay dating app it has owned since 2016 …
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
FTC launches a broad inquiry into privacy practices of ISPs, orders seven ISPs including AT&T and Verizon to provide nonpublic info about handling consumer data  —  The commission wants to know what data your ISP is collecting about you  —  The Federal Trade Commission today announced …
Manish Singh / VentureBeat:
BitTorrent says it is relaunching BitTorrent Live, its defunct Sling TV-like service, as a Snapchat-like social media app for iOS and Android, currently in beta  —  BitTorrent today announced it is reviving one of its most ambitious services as it looks for ways to expand since being acquired by blockchain startup Tron last year.
The Keyword:
Google announces an Advanced Technology External Advisory Council to consider ethical issues around AI like facial recognition and fairness in machine learning  —  Last June we announced Google's AI Principles, an ethical charter to guide the responsible development and use of AI in our research and products.
Julia Fioretti / Reuters:
Chinese video streaming service iQIYI raises $1.05B from convertible bond sale, the second such bond sale since its March 2018 IPO on Nasdaq  —  HONG KONG (Reuters) - Video-streaming firm iQIYI, backed by search engine giant Baidu, returned to the capital markets on Wednesday …
Shane Harris / Washington Post:
US Army documents show Palantir, which has struggled to win a major defense contract, has won the bid to build a battlefield intelligence system for soldiers  —  The Army has chosen Palantir Technologies to deploy a complex battlefield intelligence system for soldiers, according to Army documents …
Ka Kay Lum / DealStreetAsia:
Chinese health care crowdfunding platform Shuidichou raises ~$74M Series B led by Tencent and says it has raised $1.8B+ across 400M campaigns  —  China-based healthcare crowdfunding platform Shuidichou has raised nearly 500 million yuan ($74 million) in a Series B funding round led …
Nick Brown / Reuters:
US Census Bureau has asked Google, Facebook, and Twitter for help protecting upcoming 2020 count from disinformation campaigns designed to dissuade participants  —  NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Census Bureau has asked tech giants Google, Facebook and Twitter to help it fend off “fake news” …
Max Willens / Digiday:
Profile of Peter Stern, who has led business operations for Apple's services division, which now includes Apple TV+ and Apple News+, for the past year  —  Peter Stern joined Apple at a moment when its relationships with entertainment companies and publishers were at a low point.
J. Brian Charles / Governing:
The NYPD has developed Patternizr, an AI-based system to track crimes and spot patterns using police data, and has been using it since late 2016  —  The nation's largest police force has developed a first-of-its-kind algorithm to track crimes across the city and identify patterns.

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More News

New York Times:
Susan Decker / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Chris Welch / The Verge:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Caroline Haskins / Motherboard:
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch: