Techmeme
August 13, 2017, 12:45 PM

Top News

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 …
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:
James Damore blames Google's intense echo chamber, exacerbated by outside reactions, for his firing  —  James Damore says that his good-faith effort to discuss differences between men and women in tech couldn't be tolerated in the company's ‘ideological echo chamber.’
Fitz Tepper / TechCrunch:
Bitcoin passes $4,000 mark amid ICO frenzy and a slowdown in momentum behind Bitcoin Cash  —  What a day for Bitcoin.  —  24 hours ago the cryptocurrency was trading below $3,700.  About an hour ago it surged passed $4,000 and has no signs of stopping.  It's now trading around $4,135.00.
JC Torres / SlashGear:
Twitch launches desktop app with support for voice and video calls on Windows and macOS  —  Although YouTube is the household name for streaming videos in general, Twitch is still considered the granddaddy of the niche, but also lucrative, game streaming market.
Joe Maring / 9to5Google:
Samsung opens up beta version of its Android browser to all devices running Android 5.0 Lollipop or later  —  Samsung's mobile browser has previously been available primarily for Samsung phones (with the exception of a few other devices like the Pixel and Pixel XL) and while the main version …
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
Paul Mozur / New York Times:
Source: Facebook approved the stealthy release of app similar to Moments in China via a local company that appears to be closely linked to Facebook  —  SHANGHAI — Facebook and many of its apps have been blocked in China for years.  To change that, Mark Zuckerberg has made a big point …
Dan Primack / Axios:
Shervin Pishevar and two other Uber investors demand that Benchmark, which sued Travis Kalanick for fraud, give up its Uber board seat and sell its Uber shares  —  A group of Uber investors has asked that venture capital firm Benchmark step down from the company's board of directors, Axios has learned.

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Earlier Picks

Josh Constine / TechCrunch: