Techmeme
March 8, 2018, 12:05 AM

Top News

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:
Microsoft confirms Windows 10 S will no longer be a dedicated operating system and will become a “mode” of Windows 10 in 2019  —  Windows 10 S will no longer be a dedicated version next year  —  Microsoft says its plans to move Windows 10 S from a dedicated operating system to a special …
Russell Holly / Windows Central:
Oculus Rift users say a problem with Oculus Runtime Service's certificate has made all Rift devices useless until Oculus releases an update  —  Oculus goofed, and it's going to be a little bit before you can use your Rift again.  —  If you were hoping to get a little VR in today …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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: Telegraph and Crunchbase NewsTweets: @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.
Kim Zetter / The Intercept:
Study of Shadow Brokers documents: in 2013 the NSA was tracking 45+ different nation state operations by detecting other hackers on machines it had infected  —  When the mysterious entity known as the “Shadow Brokers” released a tranche of stolen NSA hacking tools to the internet a year ago …
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.
Farhad Manjoo / New York Times:
NYT journalist Farhad Manjoo spent nearly two months relying solely on print for his news and concluded that digital has broken how we process information  —  I first got news of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., via an alert on my watch.  Even though I had turned off news notifications months ago …
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
Magic Leap raises an additional $461M from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, on top of its $502M round in October, bringing total Series D funding to $963M  —  Magic Leap still hasn't released a product, but they're continuing to raise a lot of cash to get there.
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

Tribe AI:
Is AI just hype?  —  Find out how top enterprises use Tribe to get real business results.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
How to create an omnichannel customer engagement strategy  —  Let's talk customer engagement—the holy grail of any business.  If you look at any real-world examples, Sephora is what most consider the 'Sensei …
Comprehensive.io:
Browse salary data from 3,000 startups for free  —  Click for FREE, immediate access to real-time compensation benchmarking data.  Paid version helps HR automate comp reviews and communicate total compensation to employees.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Henry Shukman, Lessons from an Authentic Zen Master
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 03/28 - Claude 3 Opus Surpasses GPT-4 For The First Time
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:05 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

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Imani Moise / Wall Street Journal:
Will Strafach: