Techmeme
January 24, 2018, 11:50 AM

Top News

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 …
Natasha Singer / New York Times:
New section in Apple's Health app in iOS 11.3 will allow users to automatically download and view their medical records  —  In the latest indication of Apple's growing ambitions in the digital health market, the tech giant on Wednesday morning unveiled a new feature that would allow users …
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.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Google I/O 2018 to be held May 8-10 at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California  —  This year's Google I/O developer conference will take place from May 8th to May 10th at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California.  Similar to last year, Google revealed the date through an online puzzle.
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.
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.
Ryan Whitwam / Android Police:
Google Assistant now supports voice match for multiple Netflix profiles  —  Netflix was one of the first video services to add support for Google Assistant, but you could only access the main video profile.  That really limited usefulness in households where everyone has their own profile.
Canalys:
Canalys: Apple shipped 29M iPhone Xs in Q4 2017, 7M of them in China; iPhone X was the world's best-shipping smartphone model over the holiday season  —  Palo Alto, Shanghai, Singapore and Reading (UK) - Tuesday, 23 January 2018  —  Apple shipped 29 million iPhone Xs in Q4 2017.
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.
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 …
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 …
Axios:
Amazon's HQ2 PR strategy is brilliant, encouraging cities to publicly vie for its favor and inspiring positive media coverage amid a backlash against big tech  —  Elected officials across the country have spent the past three months falling all over themselves to show Amazon …
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.
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:

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More News

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Earlier Picks

Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Zack Whittaker / ZDNet:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat: