Techmeme
August 13, 2019, 8:20 PM

Top News

Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
Sources: Facebook paid hundreds of contractors to transcribe user audio; FB says it's stopped the work, which affected users who wanted voice chats transcribed  —  - Social network says it paused human review of conversations  — Apple, Amazon, Google have been scrutinized for similar work
Nitasha Tiku / Wired:
Interviews with 47 former and current employees about the past three years at Google reveal fear of the far right, activist awakening, weaponized leaks, more  —  ON A BRIGHT Monday in January 2017, at 2:30 in the afternoon, about a thousand Google employees—horrified, alarmed, and a little giddy …
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Snap announces Spectacles 3 with an updated design and a second HD camera to create depth perception, going on sale in November for $380  —  They're $380 and go on sale in November  —  Snap today announced Spectacles 3, a redesigned version of its augmented reality sunglasses with a sleek …
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Twitter to soon let users follow interests, starting with sports, and create separate timelines for different topics; topics will be curated by Twitter using AI  —  A new way to explore interests on Twitter  —  Twitter will begin letting users follow interests, the company said today …
Ed Targett / Computer Business Review:
Amazon says it has added “fear” to the range of emotions that its Rekognition facial recognition software can now detect  —  Release follows amid immigration protests  —  AWS has added “fear” to the range of emotions identified by its Amazon Rekognition facial analysis service …
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Nvidia says it has broken records for real-time conversational AI, training the industry-standard BERT model in 53 minutes and then inferring responses in ~2ms  —  Nvidia's GPU-powered platform for developing and running conversational AI that understands and responds to natural language requests …
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Spotify for Podcasters comes out of beta, giving podcasters valuable listener data like age, gender, location, music taste, and episode listening duration  —  Spotify for Podcasters comes out of beta today  —  Spotify is going to give podcasters listener data they can't get anywhere else.
The Information:
Sources: Spotify is discussing a plan with Apple to let iPhone users tell Siri to play songs, playlists, albums with voice commands, as anti-trust battle looms  —  An issue that has long vexed many iPhone users—the inability to play music from Spotify using Siri, Apple's voice assistant—may soon be a thing of the past.
Dara Kerr / CNET:
Property owners and hosts, including eight people who dealt with bedbugs in their rentals, say Airbnb doesn't have a systematic procedure to handle outbreaks  —  Waking up with bedbug bites can be a nightmare.  It's also a costly and traumatic problem for Airbnb guests and hosts.
Taylor Lorenz / The Atlantic:
Behind the rise of “twinfluencers” on social media, as content produced by twins continues to explode in popularity on YouTube and Instagram  —  You're not imagining it: Influencers really are multiplying.  —  There are the Dolan Twins, a pair of square-jawed 19-year-olds …
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Verizon sues Rochester, NY to avoid paying fees the city levied over its 5G deployments, uses the FCC's controversial order limiting such fees to argue its case  —  Verizon lawsuit against Rochester relies on FCC vote to cap city-imposed fees.  —  Verizon has sued the City of Rochester …
Angelica Krystle Donati / Forbes:
OpenSpace, which uses AI to create navigable, 360-degree images of building sites using photos from cameras attached to builders' hats, raises $14M Series A  —  I write about proptech and innovation in real estate and construction.  —  “> As a testament to the increasing significance of the subsector …
More: VentureBeatThanks:@alexanderhunter
Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE:
Pavilion Data Systems, a data center storage company, raises $25M Series C led by Taiwania Capital and RPS Ventures  —  Data center hardware maker Pavilion Data Systems Inc. is gearing up for expansion after closing on a $25 million round of funding that brings its total amount raised to $58 million.
Andrew Liptak / The Verge:
Researchers remotely install malware on a DSLR camera from Canon using the unauthenticated Picture Transfer Protocol, common in the industry; Canon issues patch  —  Canon has issued a security advisory and firmware patch for the vulnerability  —  Ransomware has become a major threat …
More: ZDNet and HackRead

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