Techmeme
January 8, 2018, 7:20 PM

Top News

Pali Bhat / The Keyword:
Google consolidates its payment offerings, including Android Pay and Google Wallet, under a single brand: Google Pay  —  If you've ever paid for groceries with Android Pay, used Chrome to automatically fill in your payment info, or purchased an app on Google Play, then you've already experienced …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: AT&T has walked away from a deal to sell smartphones made by Huawei, a partnership that was expected to be announced on Tuesday at CES  —  Reversal is set back for Chinese electronics giant's hopes to crack U.S. market  —  AT&T Inc. T .24% has walked away from a deal …
Connie Loizos / TechCrunch:
James Damore, author of controversial diversity memo who was fired by Google, files class action suit claiming it discriminates against white male conservatives  —  James Damore, a former Google engineer who was fired in August after posting a memo to an internal Google message board arguing …
Janko Rottgers / Variety:
HTC unveils Vive Pro VR headset with 2880x1600 resolution, a 78% increase over current Vive, and wireless adapter, so customers can lose the wired PC connection  —  HTC used its virtual reality (VR) keynote at CES in Las Vegas Monday to unveil an updated version of its Vive virtual reality headset …
Sara Salinas / CNBC:
GoPro issues weak guidance, drops CEO cash compensation to $1, will cut staff by 20%, exit drone business; CEO says he'd consider selling firm; stock down ~15%  —  GoPro lowered fourth quarter guidance Monday and confirmed layoffs of at least 250 employees.  —  Shares were halted in premarket trading.
Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed:
Facebook says it's sunsetting M as a standalone concierge bot, but its context-based suggestions will live on inside Messenger conversations  —  Facebook's standalone concierge bot M will soon be no more.  —  On Jan. 19, Facebook is sunsetting the initial version of M, which has been available in closed beta since fall 2015.
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Apple releases macOS 10.13.2 supplemental update and iOS 11.2.2 with security improvements to Safari and WebKit to mitigate Spectre vulnerability  —  Apple just released iOS 11.2.2 with some Safari and WebKit improvements to mitigate the Spectre vulnerability. macOS is also receiving an update.
TechCrunch:
Sources: Telegram to launch Telegram Open Network on new blockchain with native Gram cryptocurrency, ICO pre-sale of $500M, with only real fiat currency buy-ins  —  Encrypted messaging startup Telegram plans to launch its own blockchain platform and native cryptocurrency, powering payments on its chat app and beyond.
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
HP, Asus, Acer, and others plan to integrate Alexa into some of their Windows 10 desktops and notebooks this year  —  Amazon Alexa will soon arrive on Windows PCs, creating new competition for Microsoft's built-in Cortana voice assistant.  —  Hardware makers HP, ASUS …
Roger McNamee / Washington Monthly:
Facebook and Google's influence on the US election and Brexit calls for regulations for more transparency, letting users own their data and social graphs, more  —  An early investor explains why the social media platform's business model is such a threat—and what to do about it.
Variety:
Facebook has signed a multi-year, multi-territory licensing deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing, allowing users to upload and share media from the catalog  —  Sony/ATV Music Publishing and Facebook on Monday announced the signing of a licensing agreement.  —  The multi-territory …
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
After breach exposing millions of parents and kids, toymaker VTech handed a $650K fine by FTC  —  VTech, the maker of smart toys whose poor security practices exposed data from millions of parents and children, has been slapped on the wrist by the FTC to the tune of $650,000 and probation.
Karen Hao / Quartz:
Some students are taking advantage of free electricity in their dorms to mine cryptocurrencies, resulting in higher profit margins than most miners  —  Mark was a sophomore at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when he began mining cryptocurrencies more or less by accident.
Bloomberg:
How the semiconductor industry responded to Meltdown and Spectre: initial disbelief, followed by a collaborative months-long effort to patch major tech vendors  —  Technology titans work in secrecy for months to fix key flaws Researchers uncover security holes too big to believe Pause Mute Current …
More: Datanami

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.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
Meet Zoho Social MCP: Your AI assistant can now help run social media  —  Social media management has come a long way from simply publishing posts.Today, marketers are expected to create content …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Invest Like the Best:
Eric Vishria - A Decade of Lessons Investing in Software & Hardware
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'Getting the Snack Right', With Chance Miller
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Grit:
Booking.com CEO on AI and the Future of Travel
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Acquired:
Disney: The Renaissance and the Empire
Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.
Subscribe to Acquired.
Lenny's Podcast:
The playbook for building high talent density teams | Adam Ward, Head of Talent at Cursor
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 7:20 PM ET, January 8, 2018.

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

Earlier Picks

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
David Benoit / Wall Street Journal: