Techmeme
May 18, 2019, 1:00 PM

Top News

CNBC:
Google has a “Purchases” page that shows your purchases based on receipts you have in your Gmail inbox; Google says only you can view your purchases  —  KEY POINTS  — Google saves years of information on purchases you've made, even outside Google, and pulls this information from Gmail.
Brian Merchant / Gizmodo:
Profile of ObEN, which creates “personal artificial intelligences”, life-size holographic AI avatars, by modeling people's appearance and adapting their voice  —  In January 2019, when China Central Television, the largest broadcast network in the most populous nation in the world …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Salesforce says faulty script deployment gave users access to all of their company's Salesforce data, forcing it to shut down much of its infrastructure Friday  —  Faulty production script gave users access to all their company's Salesforce data.  —  Salesforce is going through …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Physical storage startup Clutter, valued at $600M in its last raise, acquired the storage business of rival Omni, which is pivoting to rentals of personal items  —  On the heels of Clutter announcing a large growth round of $200 million earlier this year, the storage startup is cleaning up the competitive field.
More: Omni
Ina Fried / Axios:
Snapchat's popular new gender-changing filter provokes mixed reactions in the LGBTQ community, with some lauding the ability to safely explore themselves  —  A Snapchat photo filter that lets people see themselves in highly feminized or masculine form has proven wildly popular.
Lizzie O'Shea / Longreads:
All harmful technologies are a product of unethical design, yet, like car companies in the '70s, today's tech companies would rather blame the user  —  an excerpt adapted from Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Teach Us about Digital Technology |
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Techdirt settles suit by Shiva Ayyadurai, who claimed to invent email; no money exchanges hands; Techdirt to link to an Ayyadurai statement on related articles  —  It's possible that some of you saw the news earlier this week that the legal dispute, in which Shiva Ayyadurai sued us for defamation …
Selina Wang / Bloomberg:
A look at Twitter in Japan, its second-largest market, raking in $136M in Q1 revenue, where the service has mass appeal and many users have multiple accounts  —  Rising ad dollars from Japan has bolstered the company's total revenue  —  When Yu Sasamoto joined Twitter Inc. as head of Japan in 2014 …
Kate Conger / New York Times:
Profile of Brian Hofer, an anti-surveillance activist who drafted San Francisco's facial recognition ban and over two dozen other privacy laws in California  —  SAN FRANCISCO — As San Francisco's Board of Supervisors prepared to vote Tuesday on an ordinance forbidding city agencies …

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Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis: AI's Next Breakthroughs, AGI Timeline, Google's AI Glasses Bet
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
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Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
Chuck Klosterman on Why Football Owns TV (and Why It Won't Forever)
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.
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Christina Cacioppo, Founder & CEO, Vanta
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Patrick O'Shaughnessy - Creating on Principle
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Special Edition: Key findings from the Microsoft AI Diffusion Report
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
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More News

Michael Hytha / Bloomberg:
Bradley Tusk / Financial Times:
Ashley Carman / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Arjun Panchadar / Reuters:
Chloe Taylor / CNBC:
Julian Chokkattu / Digital Trends:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: