Techmeme
December 19, 2019, 8:40 AM

Top News

New York Times:
A look at a dataset that logged the movements of 12M+ Americans with 50B location pings across several major cities between 2016 and 2017  —  EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY, everywhere on the planet, dozens of companies — largely unregulated, little scrutinized — are logging the movements of tens …
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Lawmakers balk after Facebook explains how it collects and monetizes location data of users who have denied location services in their smartphone OS for its app  —  - In response to a letter from Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., Facebook explained why it tracks users' locations …
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Facebook acquires Spanish cloud gaming startup PlayGiga, reportedly for ~€70M  —  - Facebook has acquired PlayGiga, a Madrid-based company that specializes in cloud gaming.  — Over the past few years, Facebook has been expanding its efforts in gaming.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Spotify is prototyping Tastebuds, a social feature that allows users to interact with and discover music by searching the people they follow  —  Spotify is prototyping a new way to see what friends have been listening to, called “Tastebuds.”  Despite how discovering music is inherently social …
Faiz Siddiqui / Washington Post:
US government says Uber will pay $4.4M to victims of alleged gender discrimination and strengthen sexual harassment defenses, following an EEOC investigation  —  An Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation found “reasonable cause to believe that Uber permitted a culture …
Los Angeles Times:
MyShake, an app that uses data from the USGS alert system that senses earthquakes, sent out its first public alert for a 4.3 magnitude earthquake on Tuesday  —  In a milestone, California's new statewide earthquake early warning cellphone app sent out its first public alert for a magnitude 4.3 earthquake …
First Round:
State of startups survey: 33%+ of founders worry about the end of a tech bubble, 65% say 2020 fundraising will be hard, and diversity and mental health are key  —  Welcome to the fifth edition of State of Startups.  What started as an experiment in 2015 has since become a treasured tradition here at First Round.
Todd Haselton / CNBC:
Apple, Amazon, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance announce a partnership to create a universal smart home standard, called the “Project Connected Home over IP”  —  - Amazon, Apple, Google and the Zigbee Alliance announced a new partnership.  — It's called Project Connected Home over IP …
Megan Graham / CNBC:
Facebook says it will ban any branded content, including influencers' posts, promoting tobacco products, vaping, or weapons on Facebook and Instagram  —  - For the first time, Facebook and Instagram are putting restrictions around the types of items that brands can promote using “branded content.”

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
Bringing local models and sandboxed tools to Windows and GitHub Copilot  —  GitHub Copilot will soon determine when a task is best handled by on-device AI and when it needs cloud-scale models.
Will Reed:
The best sales leaders aren't job hunting.  Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach.  —  Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.
Zoho:
Zoho Books now supports CT600 & Final Accounts Filing as an add-on in the FREE plan  —  Managing end-of-year filing for limited companies in the UK is often expensive and multi-layered.
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

Sources:
Qualcomm's CEO on the coming AI phone supercycle
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Bringing Back Mammoths And Building Noah's Ark 2.0 | Colossal's Ben Lamm
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.
Great Chat:
The launch industrial complex
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
Can AI Keep Growing Exponentially? Let's Ask SemiAnalysis — With Dylan Patel and Jordan Nanos
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Larry Ellison's Media Ambitions & Kevin Roose on AI's Biggest Gamble
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.
Training Data:
Google's AI Infrastructure Chief, Amin Vahdat, on the Physics & Economics of Frontier AI
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
 

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More News

Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Joseph Bernstein / BuzzFeed News:

Earlier Picks

New York Times:
CNN:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Chris Prentice / Reuters:
Sara Fischer / Axios: