Techmeme
January 17, 2018, 12:05 PM

Top News

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google launches Cloud AutoML, a service to build image recognition and other custom AI models for developers, including those with no ML expertise  —  Google today announced the alpha launch of AutoML Vision, a new service that helps developers — including those with no machine learning …
Steven Johnson / New York Times:
An in-depth look at the potential of decentralized blockchain tech that aims to fix some of the internet's fundamental structural problems  —  Yes, it's driven by greed — but the mania for cryptocurrency could wind up building something much more important than wealth.
Brian Boucher / artnet News:
Google's Arts & Culture app becomes the number one free app on the iOS App Store after its face-matching feature that was added in December goes viral  —  The search behemoth's app was all the rage on social media this weekend.  —  Googling yourself took on a whole new meaning this weekend.
Zeynep Tufekci / Wired:
Free speech online has grown even as Facebook, Google, Twitter control more attention; most effective censorship now is meddling with trust, not muzzling speech  —  FOR MOST OF modern history, the easiest way to block the spread of an idea was to keep it from being mechanically disseminated.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTube says creators will need 4K hours of watch time in past 12 months and 1K subs to join Partner Program; Google Preferred videos to be reviewed by humans  —  YouTube is making its creator revenue-sharing program more restrictive and will start manually reviewing all videos …
Liz Hamren / Windows Blog:
Microsoft brings 15-inch Surface Book 2 to 17 more countries starting today; both 15-inch and 13-inch variants will come to more countries over next two months  —  Surface Book 2 is the most powerful Surface we've ever built, and customers love that they can run their most demanding applications from anywhere.
Evelyn Cheng / CNBC:
Cryptocurrency values decline sharply, with Bitcoin down 25%+, briefly below $10K, Ethereum down as much as 30%, and Ripple down 40% at one point on Tuesday  —  Bitcoin briefly plunged below $10,000 late Tuesday afternoon on Coinbase, after first topping the psychologically key level in late November.
Greg Ip / Wall Street Journal:
Examining the arguments for antitrust regulation against Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon suggests they are safe for now, but history shows that could change  —  A few technology giants dominate their worlds just as Standard Oil and AT&T once did.  Should they be broken up?
Cecilia Kang / New York Times:
22 attorneys general file lawsuit to stop FCC's repeal of net neutrality rules; Mozilla, other net neutrality advocates also filed suits against FCC  —  The legal fight against the Federal Communications Commission's recent repeal of so-called net neutrality regulations began on Tuesday …

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Earlier Picks

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Bloomberg: