Techmeme
January 23, 2018, 6:20 PM

Top News

Apple:
Apple says its delayed HomePod smart speaker will be available to order on Friday for $349 in US, £319 in UK, A$499 in Australia, will arrive in stores Feb. 9  —  Breakthrough Wireless Speaker Brings Advanced Audio Technologies Into Any Home for an Incredible Music Listening Experience
Mitchel Broussard / MacRumors:
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Stripe says it will stop supporting bitcoin on April 23, citing volatility and long transaction times; bitcoin support was originally added in 2014  —  Payments platform Stripe will stop supporting bitcoin in April, citing the cryptocurrency's volatility and long transaction times, among other things.
Bloomberg:
Twitter COO Anthony Noto has resigned to become SoFi CEO, starting March 1  —  Noto joined Twitter in 2014 after a career on Wall Street  —  SoFi has been searching for a new leader since September  —  Twitter Inc. Chief Operating Officer Anthony Noto has resigned to accept the role …
Zack Whittaker / ZDNet:
In security update, Apple backports Meltdown fix to macOS Sierra and OS X El Capitan  —  The fix, previously reserved for newer Macs, is now available on older versions of macOS.  —  Meltdown-Spectre: A reminder to the IT industry that security is a mirage
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
KGI's Ming-Chi Kuo says lower-end 6.1" iPhone, launching 2H 2018, will have a single rear camera, aluminum frame, 3GB RAM, and no 3D Touch, will cost $700-$800  —  KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today shared additional details about the rumored 6.1-inch iPhone that he expects to launch in the second half of 2018.
Kurt Wagner / Recode:
Facebook CMO Gary Briggs is leaving to advise other companies, sit on some boards and help the Democrats in 2020  —  Briggs has been Facebook's chief marketing officer since 2013.  —  Facebook CMO Gary Briggs is retiring.  —  Briggs, who joined Facebook in 2013 from Google …
Dave Gershgorn / Quartz:
Jérôme Pesenti, former CEO of BenevolentTech and IBM Big Data CTO, to head up Facebook's AI Research lab; Yann LeCun steps into new role as chief AI scientist  —  Facebook has replaced the man Mark Zuckerberg recruited to run its artificial intelligence research …
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Snap opens up ability to share select public Stories outside the app to Twitter and Facebook or via text and email, with Stories displayed in a new web player  —  Only public Stories can be shared outside the main mobile app  —  Snap's latest effort to fight back against slow growth …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Vine cofounder Don Hofmann details its successor, v2: aiming for summer debut, 6.5 second looping videos, better moderation, Teams for collaboration, no filters  —  First, don't call it “Vine Two”.  Details are starting to emerge about v2, the forthcoming video app built to replace Vine by its former co-founder Dom Hofmann.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook buys Boston software company Confirm, which authenticates IDs and will wind down its operations  —  Facebook has confirmed to TechCrunch that it's acquired... Confirm.io.  The startup offered an API that let other companies quickly verify someone's government-issued identification card, like a driver's license, was authentic.
More: RecodeTweets: @joshconstine
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Firefox 58 arrives on Windows, Mac, Android, and Linux with smoother rendering, faster JavaScript caching, and Progressive Web Apps on Android  —  Mozilla today launched Firefox 58 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android.  The release builds on the improvements made in version 57 …
Newley Purnell / Wall Street Journal:
Google's Files Go Android app, which can delete all “good morning” images, a popular morning greeting in India, at once, has 10M+ downloads  —  The country, newly online, has become obsessed with sending cheery greetings from smartphones, causing head scratching in Silicon Valley
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
DuckDuckGo launches revamped mobile apps and browser extensions with built-in tracker blocking available globally for Android, iOS, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari  —  Some major product news from veteran anti-tracking search engine DuckDuckGo: Today it's launched revamped mobile apps …

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Tony Romm / Recode:
Brian Heater / TechCrunch: