Techmeme
July 18, 2019, 9:50 AM

Top News

Netflix Investor Relations:
Netflix reports Q2 revenue of $4.9B, up 26% YoY, and total paid membership of 152M, up 22% YoY, but it added 2.7M new subs, down from 5.5M YoY  —  Fellow shareholders, As expected, revenue growth accelerated 400 basis points to 26%, and operating income increased 53% year over year in Q2.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Jim Waterson / The Guardian:
As FaceApp goes viral again, many are wary of the image-altering app's weak privacy policy, the fact it's based in Russia, and that photos are sent to the cloud  —  App was launched by Russian developer in 2017 and uses AI to change people's features  —  The developer of a popular app …
Donie O'Sullivan / CNN:
DNC warns 2020 presidential campaigns not to use FaceApp; alert from DNC's chief security officer notes that the app was “developed by Russians”  —  Washington (CNN) — The Democratic National Committee sent a security alert to 2020 presidential campaigns Wednesday afternoon warning …
European Commission:
European Commission fines Qualcomm €242M for abusing its dominance in 3G baseband chipsets by selling below cost to force its competitor Icera out of the market  —  The European Commission has fined Qualcomm €242 million for abusing its market dominance in 3G baseband chipsets.
Ken Dilanian / NBC News:
Microsoft says it has warned ~10,000 customers of nation-state attacks in the past year and tracked 781 cyberattacks by foreign adversaries this election cycle  —  The tech giant says it has tracked more than 700 cyberattacks by foreign adversaries against U.S. political organizations so far this election cycle.
Alfred Ng / CNET:
Google removes seven stalkerware apps from the Play Store that were found by Avast researchers; the apps had been installed more than 130,000 times  —  You'd think it would be difficult to find an app that can secretly track a person's every move.  But researchers have found them right in the open on Google's Play Store.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Trump is looking into the Pentagon's JEDI contract, which is set to be awarded to Amazon or Microsoft, to decide whether he should intervene  —  - Pentagon poised to give JEDI contract to Amazon or Microsoft  — President frustrated he was unaware of Republican concerns
Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch:
Instagram expands its test to hide the number of likes on other users' posts to six more countries: Ireland, Italy, Japan, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand  —  Would the Internet be a better place if we all paid a little less attention to fake Internet points?  Instagram is still trying to figure it out.
Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch:
As part of World Emoji Day, Apple and Google share designs for around 60 new emoji, many focused on representation around disability  —  Tomorrow is World Emoji Day.  Why is there a World Emoji Day?  No idea!  But it's tomorrow!  —  To recognize the day, Apple and Google have both shed …
Brian Merchant / Columbia Journalism Review:
To duck accountability, “on background” has become the default method by which Silicon Valley disseminates information, often abetted by tech journalists  —  One of the most pernicious tools that Silicon Valley uses to control the flow of information to the public is decidedly low-tech: briefing reporters “on background.”
European Commission:

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work  —  Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.
Zoho:
3 smarter updates for your staffing pipeline  —  Staffing recruiters manage multiple client requirements, large candidate databases, and tight submission deadlines.  Finding suitable candidates is only the first step.
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.
WebBrain:
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser  —  Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox.  Use local models or your preferred AI provider.  Get started free.

Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:
How a 19-year-old intern built the growth engine behind this $2B AI company | Hector Serrano
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:
Big Tech's Ugly Week, Getting Rich At Anthropic, AI Costs Plunge
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.
Machine Gods:
OpenAI's Latest Discoveries Spark a Backlash + Help! My Kid Hates AI
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
Subscribe to Machine Gods.
The Upstarts Podcast:
The Accidental YC Founder Solving AI's GPU Crisis | SF Compute's Evan Conrad
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:
Why Sam Altman is against a single superintelligence
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
Great Chat:
The case for AI optimism
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:50 AM ET, July 18, 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

Cade Metz / New York Times:

Earlier Picks

Charlie Osborne / ZDNet:
Davey Alba / BuzzFeed News:
CNBC:
Michael McWhertor / Polygon:
Kevin Roose / New York Times: