Techmeme
October 18, 2017, 5:15 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: Facebook and Google helped Secure America Now, a conservative nonprofit advocacy group, target ads for an anti-refugee campaign in swing states  —  The big tech companies worked closely with Secure America Now to target an audience the group felt could be swayed by the message.
James Vincent / The Verge:
DeepMind's new Go-playing AI wins 90% of time against version of AlphaGo that beat world champ, trained solely by reinforcement learning without human games  —  The company's latest AlphaGo AI learned superhuman skills by playing itself over and over  —  Google's AI subsidiary DeepMind …
Catalin Cimpanu / BleepingComputer.com:
Mozilla, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, and W3C agree to unify cross-browser web documentation under Mozilla's MDN portal, rebranded as MDN Web Docs  —  Mozilla, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, and the W3C have agreed today to unify all their documentation sites under one single roof, on Mozilla's MDN portal.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Facebook officially starts rolling out its discovery-focused “Explore Feed” on desktop and mobile  —  Facebook's tests of an alternative News Feed dubbed the “Explore” feed have progressed to a full rollout, the company now confirms.  Previously available on mobile devices …
Kevin Collier / BuzzFeed:
Twitter took 11 months after being notified by GOP to shut down a fake Twitter account with 136K+ followers run by a Russian troll farm, posing as Tennessee GOP  —  The account was one of hundreds created by Russia's Internet Research Agency and drew 136,000 followers by tweeting divisive messages …
Karissa Bell / Mashable:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Samsung and Google partner to bring ARCore platform to Samsung devices beyond the Galaxy S8  —  Google and Samsung team up as augmented reality partners to take on Apple  —  Today, Samsung and Google announced a partnership to bring Google's new ARCore framework to Samsung's line of Galaxy smartphones …
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Adobe turns Lightroom CC into a new cloud photography service, providing 1TB of storage with support for RAW images, and introduces new pricing plans  —  Adobe's annual Adobe MAX conference kicks off today, and the company is introducing a whole slew of updates to its Creative Cloud platform.
Alex Webb / Bloomberg:
Apple partners with General Electric to develop industrial mobile apps for managing machinery, factories, and power plants  —  Businesses want same experiences as consumers, executive says  —  Apple makes GE's Predix its preferred industrial platform  —  General Electric Co. is teaming …
Matthew Lynley / TechCrunch:
eBay narrowly beats Q3 estimates with $2.4B revenue, up 9% YoY, as GMV rises 8% YoY to $21.7B; StubHub revenue reaches $275M, up 5% YoY  —  eBay is not having a great afternoon after posting a pretty ho-hum third quarter that fit roughly in line with analyst estimates, but perhaps not seeing …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Samsung says $499 Odyssey, the premier Windows Mixed Reality headset, won't be sold in Europe  —  Samsung unveiled what looks like the best Windows Mixed Reality headset earlier this month.  Samsung's Odyssey headset differs from its rivals thanks to dual-OLED displays …
Erin Griffith / Wired:

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify's new AI commerce stack  —  Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.
Zoho:
Enhancements to Zoho Writer's automation flow designer: New PDF operations, password protection, and more  —  Once we rolled out the automation flow designer in Zoho Writer's merge templates …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
2025 In Review, 2026 Predictions — With Reed Albergotti
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Podcast Pioneer PJ Vogt's Second Act: Less Budget, More Control
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.
BG2 Pod:
AI Enterprise - Databricks & Glean
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Great Chat:
The stories we told ourselves in 2025
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Grit:
How Brands Stay Visible When AI Decides | Profound CEO James Cadwallader
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
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 5:15 PM ET, October 18, 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

Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:

Earlier Picks

Kunal Dua / NDTV Gadgets 360:
Peter Rudegeair / Wall Street Journal:
Brian Stelter / CNNMoney:
Devindra Hardawar / Engadget: