Techmeme
April 4, 2019, 12:50 PM

Top News

Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple cuts the price of HomePod worldwide, dropping it from $349 to $299 in the US Apple Store  —  Apple has officially lowered the price of the HomePod worldwide.  In the price has fallen from $349 to $299, breaking the $300 level.  HomePod has seen promotional discounts at many third party retailers …
UpGuard:
Third-party Facebook app by Cultura Colectiva left 540M+ records of users' info exposed on AWS; Amazon was notified in Jan., but data was online until recently  —  The UpGuard Cyber Risk team can now report that two more third-party developed Facebook app datasets have been found exposed to the public internet.
Alan Boyle / GeekWire:
Amazon confirms Project Kuiper, its new initiative to launch a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites to provide broadband around the world  —  Amazon is joining the race to provide broadband internet access around the globe via thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit, newly uncovered filings show.
Michelle Toh / CNN:
MIT suspends ties with Huawei and ZTE over US investigations and says any projects working with China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia will merit additional review  —  Hong Kong (CNN Business)The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is hitting pause on its relationships with Chinese tech firms Huawei and ZTE.
James Vincent / The Verge:
Paul Karp / The Guardian:
Australia passes law penalizing social media platforms for failing to expeditiously remove abhorrent violent content, despite strong opposition from tech firms  —  Labor supports legislation in response to Christchurch shooting that threatens jail for executives, despite media companies' concerns
Craig Silverman / BuzzFeed News:
As more seniors go online, they are largely being left out of digital literacy efforts, making them targets for misinformation and hyperpartisan rhetoric  —  Older people play an outsized role in civic life.  They also are more likely to be online targets for misinformation and hyperpartisan rhetoric.
Sam Biddle / The Intercept:
Researchers find that Facebook appears to deliver certain ads, despite neutral targeting parameters, in a way that aligns with race and gender stereotypes  —  How exactly Facebook decides who sees what is one of the great pieces of forbidden knowledge in the information age …
Mark Sullivan / Fast Company:
Source: Intel has missed deadlines for the development of a 5G modem for the 2020 iPhones; Apple has 1,000-1,200 engineers working on modems for future iPhones  —  [Updated with Intel comment Wednesday 11:30 p.m. Pacific Time]  —  As of now Apple plans to release a 5G iPhone in 2020.
Manish Singh / VentureBeat:
Tonal, maker of a $2,995 in-home workout system that uses machine learning to personalize workouts, raises $45M Series C, bringing the total raised to $90M  —  Fitness startup Tonal today announced it has raised $45 million as it prepares to scale its smart in-home workout system and fend off …
More: TechCrunch and FinSMEs
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Tesla starts rolling out an update to Navigate on Autopilot in the US that will give drivers an option to use the system without having to confirm lane changes  —  Tesla has long asked you to flick the turn stalk to confirm Autopilot's lane changes, but you won't have to do that for much longer.
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Alienware Area-51m review: desktop-class performance with upgradable CPU and GPU, but requires two large power adapters, isn't portable, and is very expensive  —  The Area-51m has plenty of brawn, but IT comes with a high price  —  If you've been looking at the field of gaming laptops …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
WhatsApp Business, a free app for businesses available only on Android previously, launches on iOS in Brazil, Germany, Indonesia, India, Mexico, UK, and the US  —  Over a year after WhatsApp officially introduced its app for business customers to its first markets, the previously Android …
More: The Verge

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
What will the next generation of developers do when AI writes the code?  —  Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon are betting that the junior devs we train today will be the senior engineers of tomorrow.
Will Reed:
The best sales leaders aren't job hunting.  Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach.  —  Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.
Zoho:
UK tax compliance with Zoho Books  —  The evolving tax landscape in the UK has added an additional responsibility to business owners, accountants, and bookkeepers to ensure their choice of accounting software supports compliance …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Anthropic IPO Panic, A Spy At OpenAI?, The Great Food Slop Debate
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.
Great Chat:
What happened to tech's backbone?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
The Upstarts Podcast:
The $7B Startup Mapping Your Health In Just One Hour | Neko's Hjalmar Nilsonne
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Cheeky Pint:
The company building underwater drones for $50,000
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
BG2 Pod:
Jensen Huang | Does AI Revenue Justify Capex, '27 AI Bottlenecks, Singularity, Open vs Closed & more
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
How to Run a Political Campaign in the TikTok Era (And How Not To)
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:50 PM ET, April 4, 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

Xinmei Shen / Abacus:
Kim Zetter / Washington Post:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

Earlier Picks

Jeremy Horwitz / VentureBeat:
Brady Dale / CoinDesk:
Damien Wilde / 9to5Google: