Techmeme
November 12, 2019, 11:10 PM

Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Facebook unveils Facebook Pay, which will work on Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, to let users shop, donate to causes, send money to friends, more  —  Facebook Pay arrives just weeks after payment companies dropped out of Libra  —  Facebook is launching a new payments system today, appropriately named Facebook Pay.
Alfred Ng / CNET:
Facebook's iOS app accesses the camera as users scroll their feeds; a workaround is to revoke the app's camera permissions; a patch is “already rolling out”  —  Some people have complained their cameras got turned on while they were looking through Facebook's app.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple to debut its 16-inch MacBook Pro with a redesigned keyboard as soon as Wednesday; expected to go on sale this week, starting at ~$2,400  —  Apple Inc. plans to debut a new MacBook Pro laptop with a larger screen and revamped keyboard as soon as Wednesday, according to people familiar with the situation.
ACLU:
A district court rules the government's “suspicionless” searches of international travelers' phones and laptops at airports and US border violate 4th Amendment  —  In a major victory for privacy rights, a federal court in Boston today ruled that the government's suspicionless searches …
Frank Pallotta / CNN:
Disney+ spokesperson acknowledges service issues on launch day, saying consumer demand exceeded “high expectations”, as users complain that they can't connect  —  New York (CNN Business)Disney+ launched to much fanfare on Tuesday, and then immediately hit some bumps.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Instagram debuts Reels, a TikTok-style video remix feature, which lets you make 15-second video clips set to music and share them as Stories, in Brazil  —  Instagram is launching a video-music remix feature to  —  finally fight back against Chinese social rival TikTok.
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Intel has been slow to address information-leaking chip bugs, issuing an incomplete fix for “ZombieLoad” in May and another series of microcode patches today  —  Speculative execution attacks still haunt Intel, long after researchers told the company what to fix.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget:
Snap Spectacles 3 review: stylish, sturdy, comfortable, with clever and fun filters, but not water resistant and expensive at $380, ~3x the first-gen's price  —  In case you've forgotten, Snap makes video-recording sunglasses called Spectacles.  The first two iterations didn't do very well …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Automattic partners with Stripe to debut Recurring Payments for WordPress.com and Jetpack-powered sites, to let content creators collect repeat contributions  —  The subscription model is today sustaining a number of businesses, including artists, creators, news publishers, game developers, entertainment providers and more.
Jake Bright / TechCrunch:
Interswitch, a Nigeria-based digital payments startup, says Visa has acquired a minority stake, reportedly for $200M, at a $1B valuation, plans IPO in H1 2020  —  Nigerian digital payments firm Interswitch confirmed today it has reached unicorn status after Visa acquired a minority equity stake in the firm.
Aamir Siddiqui / XDA Developers:
Chrome OS now shows a Chromebook's end-of-life date in the device's settings  —  Chromebooks, or laptops that run ChromeOS as the operating system, have a fixed support lifespan, during which Google regularly provides for updates that keep the OS running smoothly and relatively risk-free.
Matthew Boyle / Bloomberg:
A look at Walmart's attempt to unify its legacy and online store units, causing an internal culture clash, as e-commerce investments pinch the company's margins  —  Not long ago, a Walmart Inc. store manager asked the company's e-commerce department if it could send over the details …

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
Meet Zoho Social MCP: Your AI assistant can now help run social media  —  Social media management has come a long way from simply publishing posts.Today, marketers are expected to create content …
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

Channels with Peter Kafka:
Joanna Stern on the New Siri, OpenAI's Weird Gadget, and Life After the Wall Street Journal
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
Here's How The AI Bubble Bursts — With Paul Kedrosky
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.
Invest Like the Best:
Eric Vishria - A Decade of Lessons Investing in Software & Hardware
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'Getting the Snack Right', With Chance Miller
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Grit:
Booking.com CEO on AI and the Future of Travel
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:10 PM ET, November 12, 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

Earlier Picks

Taylor Lorenz / New York Times:
Michael Hayes / OneZero:
Adam Satariano / New York Times:
Reuters:
Rob Copeland / Wall Street Journal:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: