Techmeme
March 29, 2019, 8:05 PM

Top News

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:
Apple cancels AirPower wireless charging mat, citing inability to meet its quality standards for the product  —  Apple has canceled the AirPower product completely, citing difficulty meeting its own standards.  —  “After much effort, we've concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project.
Sara Salinas / CNBC:
Lyft closes up 8.7% on its first day of trading after raising $2.3B in its IPO, which valued the company at over $20B  —  - The stock ended trading 8.7 percent up at $78.29 — something of a modest IPO for such a giant tech company.  —  Lyft's stock popped as much as 23 percent in its debut on the public market Friday.
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Interview with YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan about its recommendation algorithms, radicalization, violent extremism, and the rabbit-hole effect  —  Neal Mohan discusses the streaming site's recommendation engine, which has become a growing liability amid accusations that it steers users to increasingly extreme content.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
A newly published exploit for a Magento vulnerability that can be used without authentication puts hundreds of thousands of e-commerce sites at risk  —  Magento admins: beware of SQL flaw that requires no authentication.  —  Attack code was published on Friday that exploits a critical vulnerability …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Toast, a cloud-based restaurant management platform, raises a $250M Series E led by TCV and Tiger Global at a $2.7B valuation  —  Restaurant sales hit $825 billion last year in the US, but with margins averaging at only three to five percent per business, they're always looking for an edge …
Jessica Toonkel / The Information:
Sources: Amazon is planning to launch a free ad-supported video news app for Fire TV devices, featuring digital news programming from TV networks  —  Amazon.com is planning to launch a free ad-supported video news app for its Fire TV streaming video devices, featuring digital news programming …
Ian Allison / CoinDesk:
Coinbase Custody starts offering staking services to institutional clients, starting with Tezos  —  The Takeaway:  — Coinbase Custody is offering staking services to institutional clients, starting with Tezos.  — Client assets will remain inside Coinbase's fully insured cold storage at all times, mitigating risk to investors.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple to close Texture on May 28 following the launch of Apple News+, effectively ending the service for subscribers without Apple devices  —  A year ago, Apple acquired the digital newsstand app Texture to form the basis of its new subscription-based service, Apple News+, which launched on Monday.
Ina Fried / Axios:
Google pulls “conversion therapy” app after prominent LGBTQ group Human Rights Campaign suspended Google's ranking from its influential Corporate Equality Index  —  Google is pulling a controversial app that LGBTQ rights groups say engages in a form of conversion therapy …
Angela Chen / The Verge:
Inmates at two Finland prisons are classifying data to train AI for a startup building a database of companies; some experts have concerns about exploitation  —  Empowerment or exploitation?  —  “Prison labor” is usually associated with physical work, but inmates at two prisons in Finland …
Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
Huawei reports ~$8.8B profit in 2018, up 25.1% YoY on revenue of ~$107.13B, up 19.5% YoY, boosted by strong revenue growth of 45.1% YoY in its consumer business  —  - Huawei reported revenue of 721.2 billion yuan ($107.13 billion) in 2018, a 19.5 percent year-on-year rise.
Adam Satariano / New York Times:
Rob Price / Business Insider:
Facebook says it “mistakenly deleted” some of Zuckerberg's old Facebook posts that were public and reported on, including a post about the Instagram acquisition  —  - Some old Facebook posts by CEO Mark Zuckerberg have disappeared, and the company says it “mistakenly deleted” them.
Sam Machkovech / Ars Technica:
Valve teases a VR headset called the Valve Index with a May 2019 release date; Valve previously partnered with HTC on the HTC Vive in 2016  —  Months of barely contained rumors have now been confirmed.  —  Valve Corporation's long-rumored VR headset is finally real.
New York Times:
As Ukraine preps for Sunday's election, officials and candidates say Facebook, despite recent improvements, has been slow to respond to Russian disinformation  —  Campaigning for Ukraine's presidential election had just begun to heat up when the authorities announced they had thwarted …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Reimagine your photos with a prompt  —  Our new native image generation and editing is state-of-the-art, and ranked #1 in the world.  Try it for free in the Gemini app.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI chips, robotics, stablecoins, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 50 topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
Capture attention with visual messaging: How to leverage MMS for sales  —  This is a guest blog by CRM Messaging.While SMS remains a reliable way to reach your audience directly, modern consumers expect more than just plain text.
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

Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Sal Khan is hopeful that AI won't destroy education
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Grit:
Airtable's AI Reboot with CEO Howie Liu
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
How AI is reshaping the product role | Oji and Ezinne Udezue
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:
Google's Best Week Ever, AI's Rising Costs, Putin and Xi's Immortality Quest
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:
A.I. School Is in Session: Two Takes on the Future of Education
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.
The Social Radars:
Founder Mode: Chris Best, Founder & CEO, Substack
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:05 PM ET, March 29, 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

Earlier Picks

Joel Spolsky / Stack Overflow Blog:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Sarah Krouse / Wall Street Journal:
Michael Potuck / 9to5Mac: