Techmeme
August 12, 2014, 9:40 PM

Top News

Steven Levy / Wired:
Ex-Siri engineers promise consumer-friendly digital assistant “Viv” that can teach itself  —  Forget Siri: This Radical New AI Teaches Itself and Reads Your Mind  —  Viv was named after the Latin root meaning live.  Its San Jose, California, offices are decorated with tsotchkes bearing …
Chris Ziegler / The Verge:
Samsung may unveil VR headset at September 3 event; image shows similarities to Google's Cardboard  —  This is Samsung's VR headset  —  Samsung will be showing its rumored virtual reality headset at its upcoming product event in early September, The Verge has learned, where the company widely expected to announce the Galaxy Note 4.
Ina Fried / Re/code:
Apple's Diversity Report: 70 percent Male, 55 percent White in U.S.  —  Apple is the latest company to release a report on the diversity of its workforce, saying Tuesday that its numbers represent a work in progress to the diversity it hopes to achieve over time.  —  Currently seven in 10 of its workers globally are male.
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Uber says Lyft cancelled 12.9K Uber rides, and Lyft investors pressured Uber to buy Lyft  —  Accusations Fly Between Uber and Lyft  —  All is fair, they say, in love and war.  And Uber and Lyft, two smartphone-based car services, are most certainly at war.
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
OnePlus asks women to participate in degrading contest to get a smartphone  —  The startup OnePlus recently launched its first smartphone, the One, and to deal with production issues it's been letting people buy them by invitation only, slowly offering them to more people as more are produced.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft will offer a $499 Call of Duty Xbox One bundle with 1TB of storage, but no Kinect  —  New Xbox One bundles include two new designs and more storage  —  Microsoft is preparing two new Xbox One bundles ready for the holiday season.  A white Xbox One console, previously reserved …
Nick Summers / The Next Web:
Nick Summers / The Next Web:
Sony has sold 10 million PlayStation 4 consoles worldwide  —  Sony is on a roll.  During its press conference at Gamescom 2014, the company announced it has now sold 10 million PlayStation 4 consoles worldwide.  —  To be clear, this is the number of consoles that have been bought by consumers …
Sebastian Anthony / ExtremeTech:
Reversible USB Type-C connector finalized: Devices, cables, and adapters coming soon  —  The USB Promoter Group has announced that the greatest invention in the known universe — the reversible Type-C USB connector — is finally ready for mass production.  The USB Implementers Forum …
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple Stores to start offering iPhones via carrier financing on Aug. 20th  —  A significant number of Apple Stores in the United States will likely begin offering iPhone sales via the latest carrier financing programs later this month, according to several sources.
More: SlashGear
Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:
iOS drops to 67% enterprise share in Q2 2014, Android grows to 32%, and Windows Phone stays flat at 1%  —  Apple's iOS still rules the enterprise space, even after having fallen 5 percentage points to 67 percent of total device activations in Q2 2014.  Android device activations increased …
Zachary M. Seward / Quartz:
Twitter admits that as many as 23 million of its active users are automated  —  This piece has been updated to clarify the kinds of accounts in question.  —  Twitter raised eyebrows last month when it suggested that many of its active users aren't actually human.  Now we know how many.
Ben Thompson / stratechery:
BuzzFeed's valuation reflects how the Internet is narrowing the difference between media and software distribution  —  Is BuzzFeed a Tech Company?  —  It's telling that Chris Dixon, in a blog post explaining Andreessen Horowitz's $50 million investment, goes out of his way to explain …
Jillian D'Onfro / Business Insider:
Internal documents from LinkedIn explain how the Bizo acquisition could lead to a $US1B B2B marketing platform by 2017  —  Leaked: Here's How LinkedIn Plans To Have A New Billion-Dollar Business In 3 Years  —  LinkedIn plans to break into the $50 billion business-to-business marketing space …
More: PandoDaily
Christina Farr / Reuters:
Apple in talks with Mount Sinai, the Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, and Allscripts about its HealthKit service  —  Exclusive: Apple prepares Healthkit rollout amid tangled regulatory web  —  (Reuters) - Apple Inc has been discussing how its “HealthKit” service will work with health providers …
Tricia Duryee / GeekWire:
Rob Glaser announces layoffs at RealNetworks, cuts 10% of workforce, 86 positions worldwide  —  More layoffs at RealNetworks as 85 employees receive pink slips  —  Rob Glaser is not wasting any time cleaning house.  —  Two weeks after the company reappointed the founder as CEO …
Phil Goldstein / FierceWireless:
Verizon to launch VoLTE in Q4, but delays first LTE-only phones to 2016  —  Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) intends to launch Voice over LTE service in the fourth quarter of this year, and the carrier plans to use the technology to introduce new, high-definition telepresence services, according to Verizon Communications CFO Fran Shammo.

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