Techmeme
August 10, 2017, 2:55 PM

Top News

Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Uber rolls out out in-app messaging so drivers and riders don't have to share phone numbers; messages to the driver are also read aloud  —  :Thumbs-up emoji:  —  It was always a bit weird to wait for your Uber driver and then suddenly receive a text from an unknown number.  “Where are you?”
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook introduces Watch, its redesigned video section for original content, with producers earning 55% of ad revenue, rolling out Thursday  —  Facebook has a new home for original video content produced exclusively for it by partners, who will earn 55 percent of ad break revenue while Facebook keeps 45 percent.
Edward C. Baig / USA Today:
Consumer Reports pulls its recommendations of Microsoft Surface devices after an issue with their “predicted reliability” based on an annual subscriber survey  —  NEW YORK— Consumer Reports has removed its coveted “recommendation” designation for four Microsoft Surface laptops it had previously blessed with such status.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Kaspersky Lab to drop its antitrust complaint after Microsoft agrees to make changes to Windows 10 with better visibility, help with compatibility reviews, more  —  Kaspersky is withdrawing its European antitrust complaint against Microsoft today.  The software giant has agreed to make changes …
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft debuts open source Coco Framework to address limitations of enterprise blockchain by making it more scalable, governable, and confidential  —  Microsoft is working to address some of the current limitations of enterprise blockchain with a new cross-platform framework designed …
The Economic Times:
SoftBank's Vision Fund invests in Flipkart as an extension of its $1.4B April round; source: total invested is ~$2.6B, includes buying shares from Tiger Global  —  Softbank has invested in Flipkart through its $100 billion technology-focused Vision Fund, the Indian e-commerce company announced on Thursday.
Johana Bhuiyan / Recode:
Uber's first employee, Ryan Graves, is stepping down as SVP of global operations, but will stay on in his role as board director  —  Graves sent an email to staff today saying he will remain on the board.  —  Ryan Graves, the first Uber employee, will be stepping down from his role as SVP …
Mark Walton / Ars Technica:
AMD Threadripper 1950X review: the High End Desktop platform to beat, better than Intel in almost every way, but needs robust cooling setup and power supply  —  Cheaper, faster, and more feature-rich than Skylake-X—what's not to love?  —  If Ryzen was a polite, if firm way of telling …
James Vincent / The Verge:
DeepMind and Blizzard release SC2LE, a toolkit which includes an API, for AI research in real-time strategy game StarCraft II  —  What can computers learn from playing video games?  Quite a lot actually  —  Teaching computers to play games has always been a useful (if somewhat crude) measure of their intelligence.
Fitz Tepper / TechCrunch:
Coinbase raises $100M Series D at a $1.6B post-money valuation; round was led by IVP with participation from Spark Capital, Greylock Partners, and more  —  Coinbase has had a pretty crazy six months.  —  It may be hard to remember, but at the beginning of 2017 the cryptocurrency world was a different place.
Bloomberg:
Fired Google engineer James Damore defended his controversial memo in Bloomberg TV interview, says company execs smeared him  —  James Damore defends his controversial memo on Bloomberg TV  —  The former Google engineer, whose controversial memo has triggered a nationwide debate …

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.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference  —  Stop preparing for agents.  Start running them.  100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
Now supported: Moving your Docusign templates to Zoho Sign without setting them up from scratch  —  Are you switching from Docusign to Zoho Sign?  Is the thought of losing all your custom templates and having to rebuild them from scratch worrying you?
IDrive:
IDrive Autonomy: low-cost L2+ driver assistance with AI  —  L2+ driver assistance with a scalable AI stack built for automotive companies and laying the foundation for the autonomous future.

Featured Podcasts

Access:
Sam Altman on OpenAI's next model and the AI backlash
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Brian Singerman from GPx
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Training Data:
Making Cities Awesome: Peregrine's Nick Noone & Ben Rudolph
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.
Invest Like the Best:
Sarah Guo - Funding the Frontier
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Lenny's Podcast:
AI's third era: the rise of persistent AI coworkers | Tara Seshan (Product Lead ChatGPT Work)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
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 2:55 PM ET, August 10, 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.

More News

Ryan Whitwam / Android Police:
AnandTech:

Earlier Picks

Marc Vartabedian / Reuters:
Wall Street Journal:
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge: