Techmeme
March 8, 2018, 6:05 AM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Amazon updates Alexa to end random laughter, says laugh was triggered when Alexa mistakenly heard “Alexa, laugh”, will change phrase to “Alexa, can you laugh?”  —  Is Alexa laughing at you?  —  In the past few days, some users of Echo home speakers running Amazon …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google releases Android P developer preview with support for iPhone X-style notch, updates to Quick Settings and notifications, and more  —  But don't install it on your main phone  —  As it has for the last couple years, Google is releasing a developer preview of the next version of Android in March.
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
Android P preview: multi-camera API to better use dual cameras, Android Runtime speed boosts of up to 11% across popular apps, tightened API policies, more  —  Preview the next major version of Android with the Android P Developer Preview.  —  In what is quickly becoming an annual March tradition …
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Alex Heath / Cheddar:
Sources: Snap plans layoffs to its engineering department, the largest layoffs to date; source says about 100 people, less than 10% of the unit, are affected  —  Snap Inc. is preparing its largest round of layoffs to date, Cheddar has learned.  —  The Snapchat-maker plans to announce …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft announces new AI platform for Windows 10 developers ahead of Build, including ability to import different learning models, available in Visual Studio  —  Microsoft is planning to include more artificial intelligence capabilities inside Windows 10 soon.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Timothy B. Lee / Ars Technica:
SEC issues strongly worded warning on unregulated cryptocurrency exchanges, saying “many” appear SEC-approved when they aren't; Bitcoin is down 8%+  —  Bitcoin falls 10 percent after regulators signal crackdown on exchanges.  —  The Securities and Exchange Commission issued …
Stephen Nellis / Reuters:
Apple says it audited 756 suppliers for its annual Supplier Responsibility Report, finds 44 “core violations” of labor rules in 2017, double the previous year  —  (Reuters) - Apple Inc (AAPL.O) said on Wednesday that it had found violations of its labor and environmental policies for suppliers …
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Google updates Duo with ability to leave 30-second video messages for users who miss or decline calls, rolling out to iOS and Android users this week  —  30-second ephemeral video messages  —  Duo, Google's take on Apple's FaceTime, is getting video messages today in an update.
Lisa Lee / Bloomberg:
Sources: Uber is seeking $1.25B for its second leveraged loan and has been approaching loan investors directly instead of going through banks  —  Uber Technologies Inc. is seeking $1.25 billion in its second foray in the U.S. leveraged loan market, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
More: Crunchbase News and TelegraphTweets: @shiraovide
Eugene Kim / CNBC:
Filings show Amazon has committed to ~$22B in future food purchases, mostly from Whole Foods supplier United Natural Foods, until 2025  —  - Amazon is now on the hook for an additional $22 billion in future purchase obligations following the Whole Foods acquisition, filings show.
David Streitfeld / New York Times:
Interview with Peter Thiel on Facebook's board dynamics, Russian interference in 2016 election, his continued support for Trump, his bid for Gawker assets, more  —  Peter Thiel is Silicon Valley's homegrown Cassandra.  He warned for years that the big tech companies were arrogant and clueless …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Changelog: MoviePass updates iOS app to “remove unused location capabilities” following privacy concerns  —  Earlier this week, Mitch Lowe, CEO of the popular all-you-can-eat movie subscription service MoviePass, made headlines for bragging about how the app can track the location of its users.
Kurt Wagner / Recode:
Early data from AdStage suggests Facebook's News Feed changes have driven ad prices up by decreasing the amount of time users spend on the social network  —  Mark Zuckerberg said people would spend less time on Facebook after the change.  It looks like that might be happening.

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 WorkDrive named a Leader in the Nucleus Research CSC Technology Value Matrix 2026  —  Enterprise content management is evolving rapidly with about 80% of the data unstructured.  The growing challenge is not about storing information anymore.
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:
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.
Invest Like the Best:
Matthew Smith — Natural Gas: The Next Bottleneck
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
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 6:05 AM ET, March 8, 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

Farhad Manjoo / New York Times:
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch: