Techmeme
December 20, 2016, 3:35 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: the Mac is getting far less attention inside Apple than it once did, amid lack of clear direction from senior management and departures of key people  —  Inside the company, the once iconic computer is getting far less attention than it once did.  —  by
Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:
On an internal message board, Tim Cook says Apple has “great desktops in our roadmap”, responding to media reports  —  One of the memes to come out of the somewhat contentious rollout of the MacBook Pro is that Apple has given up on the desktop Mac.
Julia Fioretti / Reuters:
EU officials: Facebook gave misleading info during takeover of WhatsApp on ability to match WhatsApp, Facebook IDs; this won't affect merger, may result in fine  —  European Union antitrust regulators have charged Facebook Inc (FB.O) with providing misleading information during its takeover of WhatsApp …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Instagram debuts stickers for Stories, including location, time, weather, and emoji overlays and now lets users save 24-hours of updates, again copying Snapchat  —  Instagram is launching its answer to Snapchat geofilters, offering a way to spice up your photos and videos …
Sam Levin / The Guardian:
Uber says its self-driving cars have a problem when crossing bike lanes, is working on a fix; SF Bicycle Coalition had warned Uber about problem before launch  —  Engineers were working to fix programming flaw that could have deadly results for cyclists days after Uber announced it would openly defy California regulators
Mitchel Broussard / MacRumors:
AirPods teardown yields a “hot mess” of close-knit components and a 0/10 repairability score; quality issues with charging case may have been the cause of delay  —  iFixit today published a teardown of Apple's AirPods, uncovering the internal components of both the AirPods themselves …
Eric Newcomer / Bloomberg:
Source: Uber lost $2.2B+ in first 9 months of 2016, with $800M+ in Q3 excluding Chinese ops; firm on track to exceed $5.5B in net revenue this year  —  Ride-hailing company's annual loss may hit $3 billion by year's end  —  Even as Uber Technologies Inc. exited China, the company's financial loss has remained eye-popping.
Wall Street Journal:
Indian government officials say Apple has outlined plans and sought inventives to build products in India, paving the way for official stores in the country  —  Apple is seeking financial incentives to move ahead with plan, Indian officials say  —  NEW DELHI— Apple Inc. is discussing …
Lora Kolodny / TechCrunch:
Oracle senior staffer George Polisner resigns after co-CEO Safra Catz joins Trump transition team, starts petition for colleagues to protest Catz's involvement  —  A senior staff member of Oracle Corp., George A. Polisner, has resigned after the enterprise tech titan's co-CEO, Safra Catz …
More: LinkedIn and Haaretz
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Apple extends discounts for USB-C adapters and other accessories from December 31 to March 31  —  Last month, Apple dropped the price on all of its USB-C adapters and accessories by $6 to $20 until December 31.  Today, it has extended that discount until March 31, 2017 for many of the products.
Joseph Cox / Motherboard:
Egypt blocks encrypted messaging app Signal; Open Whisper Systems says it'll debut a fix over the coming weeks, suggests Tor, VPN workarounds in the meantime  —  Egypt has been censoring access to encrypted messaging app Signal, according to Open Whisper Systems, the company behind the app.

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Earlier Picks

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