Techmeme
August 14, 2017, 2:45 AM

Top News

New York Times:
Sources: Uber board mulls offers from SoftBank and a Dragoneer-led coalition to buy from shareholders at discount from last valuation, plus a Pishevar-led offer  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Uber's board has voted to move forward on proposals by two investment groups to buy shares in the ride-hailing service …
Dan Primack / Axios:
Blair Hanley Frank / VentureBeat:
OpenAI bot has defeated three top professional Dota 2 players in 1v1 play over the last week  —  An artificial intelligence has beaten one of the world's top Dota 2 players in single combat today.  Danil Ishutin, better known by his gaming handle “Dendi,” threw in the towel in the middle …
Protocol Labs:
Protocol Labs explains 24hr+ halt of now-resumed Filecoin ICO, which may be biggest ever if the $52M token presale is included, handily beating Tezos' $232M  —  NOTICE: SALE REOPENS SAT, AUG 12 AT 11:00AM PDT Dear Filecoin Investors, and broader community, Wow!  We are deeply humbled and grateful for your tremendous support.
Chris Burniske / cburniske:
As bitcoin hovers around $4,000, a look at its previous boom and bust cycles, and thoughts about cryptoasset valuations  —  As the cryptoasset markets develop we'll see many booms and busts as enthusiasm waxes and wanes.  Waxing and waning is all part of riding a rocket to the moon.
John Cook / GeekWire:
Sources: Google buys Senosis Health, maker of smartphone apps that monitor health metrics  —  Shwetak Patel has struck again.  —  The University of Washington computer scientist has sold his newest Seattle startup company, Senosis Health, to Google, according to sources familiar with the deal.
More: The Next WebThanks:@taylor_soper
Taylor Lorenz / Mic:
Instagram feeds have become dominated by planned candids, dubbed “plandids”, which are usually posed but are supposed to appear effortless  —  Instagram used to be defined by its feed of stylized, perfectly posed images, but this summer a new trend has swept the platform: the “plandid.”
Tweets: @mikeelgan
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Snap's “Other” revenue fell from $8.3M in Q1 to $5.3M in Q2, signaling a decline in Spectacles sales  —  Snap's Spectacles sunglasses may prove to be more of a fad than a must-have device.  Snap revealed during its call following weak Q2 earnings that it generated $5.4 million in …
Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:
“This Is Just Like GamerGate”: How The Pro-Trump Media Turned James Damore Into A Hero Overnight  —  A week ago, James Damore was anonymous.  Now, the Google engineer who lost his job after he wrote a viral anti-diversity screed has become an icon of the alt-right, with more than 40,000 Twitter followers …
James Damore / Wall Street Journal:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Facebook discontinued its Groups app for Android and iOS; users will be unable to log in after September 1  —  Facebook is paring down its collection of standalone apps.  The company's experimental “teens-only” app Lifestage, designed to counteract Snapchat's threat, has been pulled from the App Store.

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Marc Benioff on the AI boom, SaaSpocalypse, and future of Slack
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