Techmeme
April 19, 2018, 12:15 PM

Top News

Eugene Kim / CNBC:
Jeff Bezos says Prime has 100M+ members worldwide in his annual shareholder letter, the first time Prime membership numbers have been shared by Amazon  —  Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has released his latest annual shareholder letter.  —  In the letter, Bezos stressed the importance of having high standards in running a business.
David Ingram / Reuters:
Facebook says it will change ToS in May for 1.5B users outside EU; US, Canada to be governed by US instead of Ireland ToS, limiting GDPR impact to 400M users  —  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - If a new European law restricting what companies can do with people's online data went into effect tomorrow …
Aaron Tilley / The Information:
Sources: Intel to shut down its New Devices Group, which was formed in 2013 and made fitness trackers and smart glasses  —  Intel's long-failing foray into wearables and augmented reality is officially dead.  —  The chip giant's new devices group will shut down, according to people familiar with the situation.
Bloomberg:
An investigation of data-mining company Palantir, cofounded by Peter Thiel, which works with government agencies and law enforcement to help track US citizens  —  Peter Thiel's data-mining company is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens.  The scary thing?  Palantir is desperate for new customers.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Qualcomm is cutting ~1,500 jobs, mostly in California, in an effort to cut costs by $1B; the company employs 34K people globally  —  Company to reduce California workforce by about 1,500  —  Management acting in response to shareholder pressure  —  Qualcomm Inc. has begun cutting …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Amazon introduces Alexa Blueprints that let anyone create custom Alexa skills and responses without coding  —  Amazon this morning is introducing “Alexa Blueprints,” a new way for any Alexa owner to create their own customized Alexa skills or responses, without needing to know how to code.
Cameron Johnson / Netflix Media Center:
Netflix launches 30-second preview videos shown in vertical slideshow format, available now on iOS and coming soon to Android  —  One of the best ways to know if you'll like a new series or movie is to watch a quick trailer.  Today, we are excited to introduce mobile previews …
Stephen Schenck / Android Police:
Moto's new budget handsets: €250 G6 with dual cameras and USB-C, bigger €300 G6 Plus, €200 G6 Play with larger battery, €150 E5, €170 E5 Plus, and E5 Play  —  For smartphone fans who enjoy a good spoiler, we started the year off with a pretty substantial one …
Bloomberg:
Facebook is building a team to design its own AI chips, according to job listings and sources, joining a trend among tech giants to lower reliance on chipmakers  —  Social network could use semiconductors for consumer devices  —  Move follows Apple's chip efforts, early work by Google
Richard Gao / Android Police:
Google Pay, formerly Android Pay, passes 100M installs on the Google Play Store  —  Nowadays, several phone manufacturers have their own payment services.  There's Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, the upcoming LG Pay, and of course, Google Pay.  After experiencing two rebrands and retaining …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Researchers: 3rd-party JavaScript trackers embedded on sites using Login With Facebook can grab Facebook user data; abusive scripts found on 434 of top 1M sites  —  Facebook confirms to TechCrunch that it's investigating a security research report that shows Facebook user data can be grabbed …

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.
Zoho:
Meet Zoho Social MCP: Your AI assistant can now help run social media  —  Social media management has come a long way from simply publishing posts.Today, marketers are expected to create content …
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

Grit:
Booking.com CEO on AI and the Future of Travel
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Acquired:
Disney: The Renaissance and the Empire
Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.
Subscribe to Acquired.
Lenny's Podcast:
The playbook for building high talent density teams | Adam Ward, Head of Talent at Cursor
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
Demis Steps Down, Apple's Memory Problem, Microsoft's Clever Trick
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.
Hard Fork:
The White House's Secret A.I. Rules + The State of Model Alignment With METR's Chris Painter + The Final Hot Mess Express
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
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 12:15 PM ET, April 19, 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

Stef W. Kight / Axios:

Earlier Picks

M.G. Siegler / 500ish Words:
Johana Bhuiyan / Recode:
Connie Loizos / TechCrunch:
Tim Hardwick / MacRumors: