Techmeme: Analysis: Bay Area tech sector's job growth in 2016 slowed to 3.5%, or 26.7K jobs, down from 6% growth, or 42.3K jobs, in 2015 (George Avalos/Mercury News)

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February 12, 2017, 4:20 PM

Top News

Nick Statt / The Verge:

Tim Cook says augmented reality is ‘a big idea like the smartphone’ — Like TV, AR is becoming an Apple passion project — It's no secret that Apple's culture of secrecy forbids even the most powerful at the company from spilling details about upcoming products.

More: The Independent, AppleInsider, CNET, BGR, Scotsman, Daily Mail, SlashGear, iPhone in Canada Blog, Fortune, 9to5Mac, and Flo's Weblog

Allister Heath / Telegraph:

Tim Cook says fake news is “killing people's minds”, calls for a PSA campaign, school education, and new tools from tech companies to battle it — Tim Cook, the boss of Apple, is calling for governments to launch a public information campaign to fight the scourge of fake news, which is “killing people's minds”.

More: Recode, The Guardian, Fox News, Press Association, Christian Science Monitor, The Hill, Tech Times, CNET, Telegraph, Philip Elmer-DeWitt, MacDailyNews, Business Insider, and Patently Apple. See also Mediagazer

Pew Research Center:

Report documents the views of 1.3K tech experts, scholars, businesspeople, and government leaders on the future of algorithms and their impact on society — Algorithms are instructions for solving a problem or completing a task. Recipes are algorithms, as are math equations. Computer code is algorithmic.

More: Wired. Tweets: @pewinternet, @pewresearch, @jpalmiotti, and @mprioleau

Jeff Grubb / VentureBeat:

Valve's Steam Direct to replace Steam Greenlight, will charge developers a fixed fee to submit a game instead of relying on users to vet submissions — Valve wants to take itself out of the equation when it comes to the Steam PC gaming marketplace, and that means it is ending …

Jeffrey Matulef / Eurogamer.net:

Gabe Newell says Valve is working on 3 “full” VR games and is inspired by Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto to design hardware at same time as software

More: Ubergizmo, Gamasutra, The Verge, Kotaku, Tech Times, VentureBeat, Road to VR, SlashGear, Mashable, TechSpot, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Digital Trends, GeekWire, GamesIndustry.biz, DualShockers, Engadget, VRFocus, Ars Technica, and bit-tech.net

Nicole Perlroth / New York Times:

Restricted spyware from government cyberarms dealer NSO Group found on the phones of advocates for Mexico's 2014 soda tax — SAN FRANCISCO — Last summer, Dr. Simón Barquera's phone started buzzing with a series of disturbing text messages from unknown numbers. One said his daughter had been in a serious accident.

More: The Citizen Lab, Engadget, and Boing Boing

Tweets: @owlese, @zackwhittaker, @jorge_guajardo, @johnhultquist, @dangillmor, and @nicoleperlroth

George Avalos / Mercury News:

Analysis: Bay Area tech sector's job growth in 2016 slowed to 3.5%, or 26.7K jobs, down from 6% growth, or 42.3K jobs, in 2015 — Even with looming layoffs, tech still drives region's economy — SAN JOSE — Job growth in the tech industry used to zoom like a race car, but these days …

More: Silicon Valley Business …

Abner Li / 9to5Google:

Instant Tethering, which lets Google devices seamlessly share cellular data connections, is now officially available to select Pixel and Nexus devices — First spotted in testing last month, Instant Tethering automatically and seamlessly shares a cellular data connection through Wi-Fi.

More: TechRadar.com, The Verge, Droid Life, Engadget, Tech Times, and AndroidHeadlines.com

David Shepardson / Reuters:

FCC says wireless spectrum auction bidding has ended at $19.6B for 84 MHz, a significantly lower price than many analysts forecasted — The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said Friday that bidding in the wireless spectrum auction has ended at $19.6 billion, significantly less than many analysts had initially forecast.

More: The Hill

Kif Leswing / Business Insider:

Image of Magic Leap rig from January leaks, showing a bulky backpack containing a visible circuit board; CEO says it was a test rig to collect room data — Magic Leap, the $4.5 billion startup backed by Google building technology that “augments” human vision with digital imagery …

More: Ubergizmo, SlashGear, Mashable, Recode, Fortune, Engadget, Gizmodo, Tech Times, The Verge, UploadVR, and Axios

Tweets: @rabovitz, @tomwarren, @h0x0d, @benedictevans, @kylebrussell, @mims, @jaycuthrell, @mattlynley, @caseynewton, @selenalarson, @panzer, @c_davies, and @backlon

Thanks:@redletterdave

Ian Cutress / AnandTech:

Intel reveals 8th Generation Core microarchitecture will remain on the 14nm process node, making it the fourth generation 14nm chip — A quick news piece on information coming out of Intel's annual Investor Day in California. As confirmed to Ashraf Eassa by Intel at the event …

More: PCWorld, Ubergizmo, Fortune, Engadget, Intel Newsroom, Wccftech, TechSpot, MSPoweruser, Liliputing, SiliconANGLE, Slashdot, ExtremeTech, and bit-tech.net

Tweets: @intelnews, @tmfchipfool, @smileyborg, @tmfchipfool, and @ryansmithat

Thanks:@iancutress

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Prince's Warner Music catalog returning Sunday to subscription-streaming services, including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Napster, and iHeartRadio — Songs of late music legend Prince will again be available on multiple streaming-music services on Sunday, in releases timed for the 59th Grammy Awards.

More: Quartz, VentureBeat, BBC, Bloomberg, Engadget, Ars Technica, Neowin, The Next Web, Billboard, NME, FACT Magazine, Bloomberg, Fortune, SiliconBeat, Vibe, SPIN, Rolling Stone, CNNMoney, TeamRock, Radio.com, TIME, and TechCrunch. Tweets: @eldsjal. See also Mediagazer

Johana Bhuiyan / Recode:

Ford says it will invest $1B into Argo AI over 5 years and take a majority stake in the startup; Argo AI will work on autonomous driving tech for Ford's cars — The automaker will take a majority stake in Argo AI, founded by two top engineers from Google and Uber.

More: Ford, CIO.com, Tech Times, Quartz, Newser, YourStory.com, Bloomberg, ZDNet, SiliconANGLE, The Verge, Business Insider, Reuters, Mashable, VentureBeat, Digital Trends, TechConnect, Engadget, GeekWire, Axios, Ars Technica, Silicon Valley Business …, and USA Today

Tweets: @eringriffith, @amir, @mikeisaac, @mikeisaac, and @mikeisaac

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