Techmeme: Lyft has made its 1,000 e-bikes in San Francisco “unavailable to riders” following two reports of bikes catching fire (Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez/The San Francisco …)

Top News

Cisco to pay $8.6M to settle government claims for selling video surveillance tech with a security flaw, reported in 2008, to government agencies until 2013 — WASHINGTON — Cisco Systems agreed on Wednesday to pay $8.6 million to settle claims that it sold video surveillance technology …

More: CyberScoop, Engadget, Washington Post, Cisco Blog, Washington Post, CNBC, Reuters, IT PRO, Gizmodo, ComputerWeekly.com, The Hacker News, The Register, Security Affairs, ZDNet, and Slashdot

Tweets: @katefazzini, @ericgeller, @bad_packets, @campuscodi, @kimzetter, and @campuscodi

The Guardian:

Facebook says it was “not our role” to remove fake news during Australian election; it only demotes fake news, removes content that violates community standards — Exclusive: Facebook executive Simon Milner says company ‘only removes content that violates our community standards’

More: CNET. Tweets: @murpharoo, @vanbadham, and @firstdraftnews

Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:

Bird unveils new electric scooter with 50% more battery life, anti-vandalism sensors, anti-tipping kickstands, and anti-puncture tires — Bird Two also has anti-tipping kickstands and anti-puncture tires — It's been less than three months since Bird unveiled Bird One …

More: Engadget, VentureBeat, and Electrek

Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times:

With an estimated 420K CCTV cameras operating in the city, London has become a test bed for visual surveillance tech, including live facial recognition — On the last day of January, few of the shoppers and office workers who hurried through Romford town centre in east London …

Tweets: @henrymance, @nuffieldfound, @groomb, @financialtimes, and @financialtimes

Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez / The San Francisco Examiner:

Lyft has made its 1,000 e-bikes in San Francisco “unavailable to riders” following two reports of bikes catching fire — The flames appear to have originated from the battery — The battery of an electric Lyft bicycle appeared to catch fire Wednesday in the Lower Haight.

More: Engadget, Android Authority, The Verge, Digital Trends, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, The Guardian, CNET, Business Insider, Mashable, and NBC Bay Area

Tweets: @william_fitz and @transbay

Lauren Feiner / CNBC:

Fitbit beat analyst estimates with Q2 revenue of $314M, up 5% YoY, but lowered Q3 guidance; stock down 14%+ after hours — KEY POINTS — The Fitbit Ionic has a few apps, with more to come — Shares of Fitbit cratered as much as 21% after hours on Wednesday after the company cut guidance …

More: Fitbit, Inc., Android Authority, Cult of Mac, Thurrott, 9to5Mac, and ZDNet

Tweets: @mattrosoff and @henshaw

Devindra Hardawar / Engadget:

Intel unveils eleven 10th-gen Ice Lake laptop CPUs, built on its new 10-nm Sunny Cove architecture, claims they run 18% more instructions per clock than before — Intel gave us the broad strokes of its 10th-generation “Ice Lake” notebook CPUs at Computex a few months ago, but now the company is finally ready to give us more details.

More: The Verge, Thurrott, CNET, Fortune, AnandTech, Windows Central, Gizmodo, ZDNet, PCWorld, VentureBeat, Digital Trends, and IGN

Olivia Carville / Bloomberg:

Court filing: former IBM HR VP Alan Wild says the company has fired 50,000 to 100,000 staff in recent years; ongoing litigation argues older staff were targeted — - Moves were to make IBM appear as ‘cool’ as Google and Amazon — Big Blue is facing several age-discrimination lawsuits

More: Axios, TechSpot, ComputerWeekly.com, SiliconANGLE, and Business Insider

Tweets: @stevekopack and @zachweinberg

Alex Wilhelm / Crunchbase News:

Report: Cloudflare plans to pursue an IPO in September and has filed a confidential S-1 with the SEC; it was valued at ~$3.2B in its $150M March Series E — Morning Markets: Cloudflare is reportedly going public this year, meaning that we have at least two big-name IPOs left in the tank.

Source: Business Insider. More: SiliconANGLE

Varun Mishra / Counterpoint Research:

Analysis: in Q2 2019, global smartphone shipments declined 1% YoY, making it the 7th consecutive quarter of declining shipments; Samsung shipments grew 7.1% YoY — Overall smartphone shipment declined 1% in Q2 2019, making it the seventh consecutive quarter of declining shipments.

More: 9to5Mac, Strategy Analytics …, Gizmochina, CNET, KrASIA, and Android Authority

Tweets: @varun_m01, @shobhit07, @neiltwitz, @neiltwitz, and @neiltwitz

Ryan Browne / CNBC:

UK-based fintech startup Revolut launches commission-free US stock trading service, including the ability to buy fractions of shares — KEY POINTS — Revolut users will be able to buy a fraction of shares in U.S. companies through its trading platform. — British fintech firm Revolut …

More: Revolut Blog, TechCrunch, Quartz, Coinspeaker, The Block, and Bloomberg. Tweets: @revolutapp. Thanks:@ryan_browne_

Ryan Christoffel / MacStories:

An in-depth look at Apple Maps in iOS 13, the biggest update to the service so far, and how it compares to Google Maps — Apple's path to a home-brewed mapping solution has been long and perilous, but it's almost arrived. — 12 years ago the iPhone launched with Google powering …

More: iPhone in Canada Blog. Tweets: @craigmod, @whatthebit, @viticci, and @iryantldr

Liam Tung / ZDNet:

Google to let G Suite admins select users for the Advanced Protection Program, designed to prevent cyberattacks against high-profile users, in the coming days — You might never need to change your password again if you're part of the G Suite Advanced Protection Program.

More: Google Cloud Blog, G Suite Updates Blog, The Next Web, Dark Reading, Google Online Security Blog, and VentureBeat. Tweets: @googlecloud

Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:

After 6 months of fact-checking for Facebook, Full Fact published 96 fact-checks, was paid ~$171k, wants Facebook to share more data with fact-checkers — In December 2016, Facebook enlisted a handful of U.S.-based news organizations (ABC News, Snopes, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, and the AP) …

More: Full Fact Blog, MIT Technology Review, Engadget, Press Gazette, The Guardian, New Scientist, RAPPLER, Reuters, and Social Media Today

Tweets: @fullfact, @fullfact, @niemanlab, @niemanlab, @niemanlab, and @risj_oxford

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:

Fast, affordable law for startups — Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better. We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts. Join the waitlist for early access!

Equals:

Stop vibe coding analytics — Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards. Build once, iterate for years.

Zoho:

Zoho Mail MCP: Make your inbox work for you — Maya is the head of operations at a 500-person B2B software company. She's sharp, she's busy, and she starts every morning the same way-with her coffee, laptop, inbox.Not to work.

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.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:

Anthropic's Mythos is Back, OpenAI Releases GPT 5.6, Apple's Price Increases

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:

'The Daily' and 'The Opinions': How A.I. Is Changing Loneliness and Taste

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 Upstarts Podcast:

Writer's May Habib: Building AI Tools For Corporate 'Normal People' The Labs Leave Behind

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.

The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:

A Nick, Dick, and Paul Buffet!

Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.

Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.

Great Chat:

How much data do we actually want about our bodies?

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.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI

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.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:20 AM ET, August 1, 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.