Techmeme
March 29, 2019, 11:35 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.
Craig Lloyd / iFixit:
A theory on Apple's AirPower: its overlapping multi-coil design worked in the lab but complying with FCC's rules for safe wireless emissions was too challenging  —  In a surprising turn of events, Apple has cancelled its long-awaited AirPower wireless charging mat.
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 …
Hannah Kuchler / Financial Times:
A look at Facebook's growth team, set up in 2007 to pioneer techniques to lure in new users, that has now been charged to fix the company's “integrity” problems  —  If you joined Facebook at any time over the past decade, Alex Schultz probably had something to do with it.
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 …
Reuters:
Sources: cross-border money transfer startup TransferWise is raising up to $300M at a ~$4B valuation  —  (Reuters) - TransferWise Ltd, the money transfer startup whose investors include entrepreneur Richard Branson and PayPal Holdings Inc founders Peter Thiel and Max Levchin …
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 …
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.
Gina Narcisi / CRN:
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins says the company is on track to have software and services account for 30% of its revenue over the next three years  —  As Cisco transforms its business model to focus first on software and services, the IT giant wants to encourage more partners to go after more 'holy …
Tweets: @mgsieglerThanks:@crn

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Prospect:
A running list of the best startups to join  —  We've analyzed thousands of startups using the same data VCs use and distilled our list down to the top 2%.  Discover and join the next Stripe, Airbnb, or Coinbase today.
Zoho:
The evolution of remote support in telecommunications  —  Remote support, once a novel concept, has now become an indispensable tool in the telecom industry.  It offers a way to troubleshoot issues …
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's Big Week, Did Google Kill The Web, AWS CEO Resigns
The Big Technology Podcast, hosted by journalist Alex Kantrowitz, takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 05/17 - Reddit Embraces Its AI Role
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:35 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

New York Times:

Earlier Picks

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
Sarah Krouse / Wall Street Journal:
Michael Potuck / 9to5Mac: