Techmeme
January 24, 2018, 1:05 AM

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
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
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.
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 …
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 …
Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed:
Facebook's survey to rank trust of publications asks two questions: “Do you recognize the following websites” and “How much do you trust each of these domains?”  —  Last week, Facebook said its News Feed would prioritize links from publications its users deemed “trustworthy” in an upcoming survey.
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.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Montreal-based Element AI, which helps firms utilize AI and has raised $102M, opens its first international office in London to work with NGOs, charities, more  —  Element AI — which last year raised $102 million to build an incubator-meets-consultancy to work with multiple businesses …
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 …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Amazon Go is another manifestation of Amazon's strategy: invest massively in R&D for a moat that no retailer or software-based competitor can match  —  Amazon Go is the story of technology, and so is this tweet: … Yesterday the Amazon Go concept store in Seattle opened to the public …
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Amazon acquires advanced threat detection startup Sqrrl, to boost the security of AWS; earlier reports pegged the deal at $40M+  —  - Amazon's cloud business has recently stepped up its efforts to pick up business from U.S. intelligence agencies.  —  Amazon's cloud business has acquired Sqrrl …
More: GeekWire
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple says Siri is now being actively used on 500M+ devices  —  In today's announcement about the HomePod's February 9 launch date, Apple quietly provided new data on how many people are using Siri.  According to the company, Siri is now actively used on more than half a billion devices.
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.
Tony Romm / Recode:
Internet Association, a lobbying group for Amazon, Facebook, Google and others, to create new campaign to improve diversity in the tech industry  —  The Internet Association told lawmakers this week that its new campaign aims to “improve diversity and inclusion in the tech industry.”

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Earlier Picks

Nick Statt / The Verge:
Tony Romm / Recode: