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.

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference  —  Stop preparing for agents.  Start running them.  100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
App Spotlight: Google Sheets Magic Lookup for Zoho CRM  —  Our App Spotlight brings you hand-picked apps to enhance the power of your Zoho apps and tools.  Visit Zoho Marketplace to explore all apps, integrations …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Special Report: Will AI Wipe Out Humanity? (And Who Profits)
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
The Atlantic's CEO on AI, Billionaire Owners, and Moonlighting as a Creator
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Sources:
Mark Zuckerberg on Muse, Meta's biggest AI bet yet
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Lenny's Podcast:
How we built Grok Bot in a month | Roman Ugarte (SpaceXAI)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Invest Like the Best:
Walter Russell Mead - How America Keeps Winning
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Grit:
The AI Race Has a Leaderboard | Arena CEO Anastasios Angelopoulos
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:55 AM ET, January 24, 2018.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

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