Techmeme
February 13, 2018, 9:20 AM

Top News

Dave Lee / BBC:
UK government has spent £600K on an AI tool that can algorithmically block extremist content, claims it is capable of detecting 94% of IS's online activity  —  The UK government has unveiled a tool it says can accurately detect jihadist content and block it from being viewed.
Benjamin Mullin / Wall Street Journal:
Google launches dev preview of AMP stories for publishers today with Snapchat-like swipeable text, photos, and videos, considers integrating stories into search  —  The format doesn't support advertising yet, which could slow its adoption among publishers  —  Alphabet Inc.'s GOOGL .79% Google unveiled …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook to allow publisher paywalls in its iOS app starting 3/1; users get five articles before being asked to pay, publishers get 100% subscription revenue  —  Apple is allowing Facebook to bend the subscription rules.  Starting March 1st, news publishers will be able to use their paywalls inside Facebook's iOS app.
Natasha Singer / New York Times:
Harvard, MIT, NYU among growing crop of US universities offering computer science ethics courses in the wake of fake news and other troubles at tech companies  —  PALO ALTO, Calif. — The medical profession has an ethic: First, do no harm.  —  Silicon Valley has an ethos: Build it first and ask for forgiveness later.
Tweets: @pariseautt
Taylor Lorenz / The Daily Beast:
600K+ people sign Change.org petition calling for Snapchat redesign to be reverted as celebs including Chrissy Teigen, Kylie Jenner, MKBHD criticize update  —  Last week Snapchat rolled out its biggest redesign since the app launched in 2011.  —  The company split the app into two sections …
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft says it will add Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection support for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 this summer  —  Microsoft is adding Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1 to the list of protected end-points covered by Windows Defender ATP, starting this summer.
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
San Francisco-based customer support software startup UJET raises $25M Series B led by GV with participation from Kleiner Perkins and others  —  UJET, a startup that makes software to improve customer support, said today that it's raised a $25 million Series B led by GV (formerly known as Google Ventures).
Nicole Perlroth / New York Times:
Researchers: cyberattack caused disruption to Pyeongchang2018.com and local internet, which grounded drones and more during Winter Olympics' opening ceremony  —  A cyberattack caused the internet disruptions during the Winter Olympics' opening ceremony on Friday night, Olympic officials and security experts said.
Egill Bjarnason / Associated Press:
Iceland is expected to use more energy “mining” bitcoin and other digital currencies this year than it uses to power its homes, says a local energy expert  —  KEFLAVIK, Iceland (AP) — Iceland is expected to use more energy “mining” bitcoins and other virtual currencies this year than it uses to power its homes.
Matt Day / The Seattle Times:
Source: in a rare cutback, Amazon is laying off several hundred corporate employees in Seattle and hundreds elsewhere across its global operations  —  Amazon is cutting several hundred jobs in Seattle, and hundreds elsewhere, a rare layoff that appears to fall predominantly on its established consumer retail business.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
IDC research director says Essential shipped 88,000 smartphones in the first six months after its May 2017 launch  —  Andy Rubin's Essential Phone faces a harsh reality in the high-end market  —  Essential, Android co-founder Andy Rubin's new smartphone venture, had a rough go of it last year trying …
iFixit:
Teardown finds HomePod has great build quality, but a saw is needed to open the device; some parts, including the fabric mesh, can be easily removed  —  Tools Featured in this Teardown  —  Introduction  —  Apple's beloved voice assistant is back again, this time in more of a Mac Pro wearing a jacket.
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Uber will require drivers in the US to take six-hour breaks after driving a total of 12 hours in a single shift  —  The app will use GPS and telematics to track driving time  —  In an effort to combat drowsy driving, Uber announced today that it would require its most frequent drivers …

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.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
Zoho Notebook: The free iPad note-taking app every student needs  —  If you're a student with an iPad, you already have one of the best note-taking devices in your hands.  The question is, does your app actually do it justice?
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

The Upstarts Podcast:
Abridge's Shiv Rao: The Doctor Founder Taking On Microsoft In Healthcare AI
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's Bots Break Containment and Hack Hugging Face Autonomously — With Alex Stamos
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.
Great Chat:
Too big to laugh: how tech lost its sense of humor
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Substack Wants To Become A Social Network; Beehiiv Wants To Stay Invisible
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.
Training Data:
Factory's Matan Grinberg: The Coming 'Dark Factory' Where Software Builds Itself
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:20 AM ET, February 13, 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

Fitz Tepper / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Google Cloud Platform Blog:
Aaron Tilley / The Information:
Wired: