Techmeme
January 24, 2018, 9:55 AM

Top News

EU Press Room:
EU fines Qualcomm €997M for abusing market dominance, says it paid Apple to buy LTE baseband chipsets from Qualcomm exclusively; Qualcomm to appeal  —  The European Commission has fined Qualcomm €997m for abusing its market dominance in LTE baseband chipsets.
Apple:
Apple previews iOS 11.3 with ability to turn off controversial throttling of older iPhones, new Animoji, business chat in Messages, and more  —  Major Updates to ARKit, Messages and More Coming This Spring  —  This spring, iOS 11.3 will deliver exciting new ways to experience augmented reality …
Lauren Goode / The Verge:
Apple announces ARKit 1.5 in iOS 11.3 beta with support for vertical planes, 2D image recognition, and imagery in 1080p HD  —  Vertical planes and 2D image recognition are coming to ARKit  —  Apple just announced an updated version of its augmented reality platform, timed to the developer beta release …
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.
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
Popular home media server application Plex adds support for Google Daydream VR  —  Last year Plex's reach extended to cover live TV and automobiles, so in 2018 the company is jumping into yet another platform: virtual reality.  As it has done before, the company brought in the developer …
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 …
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.
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Researchers show Tinder's lack of encryption lets hackers see all photos, inject their own images in users' photo streams, and watch users' every swipe  —  IN 2018, YOU'D be forgiven for assuming that any sensitive app encrypts its connection from your phone to the cloud …
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:
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
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
HomePod can play podcasts, Beats 1, iTunes purchased content without Apple Music subscription, stream non-Apple music services via AirPlay from an iOS device  —  Apple today announced that HomePod goes on sale February 9.  Whilst HomePod works best with an Apple Music subscription …
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.
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 …
Steve Yegge:
Engineer Steve Yegge leaves Google after 13 years, says it has lost its way due to risk aversion, politics, arrogance, and a focus on competitors over customers  —  Note: This is my first time using Medium.  Please forgive any faux pas.  Also, it's pretty long even for me, so you might want to go grab a coffee.

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Earlier Picks

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Johana Bhuiyan / Recode:
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors: