Techmeme
January 31, 2017, 6:40 AM

Top News

Casey Newton / The Verge:
More than 2K Google employees, including Sundar Pichai and Sergey Brin, across eight campuses stop work to protest Trump's executive order banning immigration  —  Google employees in offices around the world staged a walkout on Monday afternoon in protest of President Donald Trump's executive …
Hamza Shaban / BuzzFeed:
Amazon and Expedia file sworn statements in court, join Washington State's lawsuit against Trump's travel ban; Microsoft cooperating with the State AG office  —  The attorney general of Washington state filed a lawsuit Monday challenging President Donald Trump's controversial immigration order …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Lyft surges as high as #4 in Apple's App Store top free chart, surpassing Uber at #13, in wake of the #DeleteUber campaign  —  Lyft's app has surged in the App Store thanks to the “Delete Uber” campaignwhich took place via social media over the weekend.  People were angry that Uber appeared …
Bloomberg:
Sources: White House draft proposal aims to overhaul foreign work visas, requires firms to try to hire Americans first, prioritizes visas for most highly paid  —  President Donald Trump's clash with Silicon Valley over immigration is about to become even more contentious.
Matthew Lynley / TechCrunch:
In response to Trump's travel ban, tech execs, investors, and firms including Lyft and Google pledge donations to ACLU as well as other non-profits, initiatives  —  Tech executives are offering to match donations to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) following the enactment …
Matthew Dessem / Slate:
BuzzFeed:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Dropbox takes Paper, its Google Docs competitor, out of beta for global launch and tests new features including a project organization tool with task management  —  In 21 languages around the world  —  Dropbox's latest tool for businesses, a piece of collaborative editing software called Paper, is launching globally today.
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Fitbit to cut six percent of its staff, or about 110 jobs, following a disappointing Q4 with 6.5M devices sold  —  As anticipated, wearable leader Fitbit kicked off the week by announcing a 6 percent reduction in global work force, following disappointing fourth quarter financials.
Jessica Dolcourt / CNET:
Razer acquires Nextbit, maker of Robin smartphone; Nextbit will stop selling Robin phones but will continue providing support for six months  —  Robin phones will see software support for the next year, but don't expect a sequel soon.  —  Josh Miller  —  Having hatched its cloud-based Robin phone …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Analytics firms and social media stars say Snapchat Stories view counts have plummeted between 15% and 40% since Instagram launched its Stories clone  —  Good enough and convenient.  That's proved a winning strategy for Instagram's clone, according to a dozen analytics providers …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Starbucks unveils a virtual assistant that takes your order via messaging or voice  —  Starbucks is embracing the trend towards voice-based computing with the launch of a new feature in its mobile app called My Starbucks barista, which allows customers to order and pay for their food and drinks just by speaking.

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:
Zoho Books introduces the Landlords edition in the UK  —  Managing rental properties in the UK has long involved a messy mix of spread-out receipts, manual spreadsheets, and end-of-year tax scrambles.
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:
Lucas Shaw on Warner Bros' Limbo, Netflix's Anxiety, and Hollywood's Sort-of Comeback
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:
How China Caught U.S. AI — With Grace Shao
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.
Training Data:
Building the Automated AGI Lab: Core Automation's Jerry Tworek and Rohan Anil
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.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Tony Xu from DoorDash
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Invest Like the Best:
Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
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 6:40 AM ET, January 31, 2017.

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.

Earlier Picks

Clarence Williams / Washington Post: