Techmeme
January 9, 2018, 7:20 PM

Top News

Alex Heath / Cheddar:
Sources: Facebook plans to unveil Portal, an Echo Show-like video chat device with a screen and camera, at F8 in May and ship it in second half of 2018 for $499  —  Facebook is about to jump into the consumer hardware business in a big way with a video chat device named “Portal,” …
Taylor Lorenz / The Daily Beast:
Leaked Snapchat DAU metrics from April to September 2017 show Snapchat is used mainly as a chat app, with Snap Maps' usage trailing off to ~19M since launch  —  Snapchat takes its secrecy seriously.  Very, very seriously.  —  Take the case of one former Snapchat employee.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft halts AMD Meltdown and Spectre patches after reports of some AMD PCs becoming unbootable after installing recent updates  —  Microsoft blames AMD's documentation  —  Microsoft has paused distributing its Meltdown and Spectre security updates for AMD machines after reports of PCs not booting.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft on Spectre updates' speed impact: “single-digit slowdowns” on new PCs, big effect on PCs with Haswell/older chips and servers with I/O-intensive work  —  It's bad news for older Windows 7 and Windows 8 machines  —  Microsoft is taking the surprise step of detailing …
David Ruddock / Android Police:
Source: Verizon faces political pressure to cancel launch of Huawei Mate 10 amid allegations of Huawei being a security threat, news that AT&T ended Huawei deal  —  Speaking to a source familiar with the company's plans, Verizon is facing political pressure to cancel the launch a Huawei smartphone later this year.
More: 9to5Google and CNET
Jeremy Herron / Bloomberg:
Kodak's stock spiked as much as 77% on its announcement to launch KODAKcoin, “a photocentric cryptocurrency” for better image rights management  —  Kodak's latest moment has it joining the cryptocurrency frenzy.  —  Shares in Eastman Kodak Co. jumped as much as 77 percent …
David Pierce / Wired:
Inside Amazon's Alexa Voice Services division, which makes hardware and software development kits that help manufacturers build Alexa-enabled products  —  WHEN IT FIRST launched in 2014, Amazon's Alexa voice assistant was little more than an experiment.  It appeared first inside the Echo …
Michelle Robbins / Search Engine Land:
Google announces that Google AMP cache will display publisher URLs and drop the Google AMP URL prefix in search results, starting in the second half of 2018  —  Google announced today that it is well on its way to solving one of the most annoying (to publishers) “features” of AMP …
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Dell unveils a XPS 15 2-in-1 with keyboard that uses magnets for key feedback, Intel-AMD chip, 1080p or 4K touchscreen display, shipping this spring for $1,300+  —  It's way more powerful than the 13-inch version  —  Dell is introducing a 15-inch version of its XPS 2-in-1, after debuting a 13-inch model last year.
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google Assistant is coming to smart speakers from a variety of companies this summer, including speakers with displays from JBL, Lenovo, LG, and Sony  —  Google Assistant is coming to a ton of speakers, some with their own screens  —  If Google's gigantic “Hey Google” …
Reuters:
Trump signs executive order that lets companies more easily build broadband infrastructure on federal land and buildings, in effort to improve rural broadband  —  U.S. President Donald Trump was expected on Monday to sign an executive order to make it easier for the private sector …

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Corinne Reichert / ZDNet:
Zack Whittaker / ZDNet: