Techmeme
May 8, 2018, 3:00 PM

Top News

Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Google announces it's adding six new voices, both male and female, to Assistant and will add musician John Legend's later this year  —  Not to be outdone by recent upgrades to Alexa and Siri, Google today announced that it's adding not one, but six new voices to its Assistant offering.
Richard Nieva / CNET:
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Preview of changes and features coming in Android P: focus on “Digital Well Being” including usage dashboard, visual tweaks, gestures, and deeper AI integration  —  How the new update could help you use your phone less  —  This year, Google is doing something different with Android.
Matthew Lynley / TechCrunch:
Google announces a new generation for its TPU machine learning hardware  —  As the war for creating customized AI hardware heats up, Google is now rolling out its third generation of silicon, the Tensor Processor Unit 3.0.  —  Google joins pretty much every other major company in looking …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google adds Smart Compose feature to Gmail, which suggests phrases as you type and lets users autocomplete them by hitting tab, rolling out to all this month  —  Following a big revamp to Gmail last month, Google is adding a new machine learning feature this month.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google Photos adds more AI-suggested actions, including colorization tweaks, automatically converting images to PDF, and more; roll out starts this week  —  Google Photos already makes it easy for users to correct their photos with built-in editing tools and clever, A.I.-powered features …
Sean Gallagher / Ars Technica:
Equifax finally fully discloses data breach impact in SEC filing: 145.5M SSNs, 99M addresses, 20M phone numbers, 17.6M driver's license numbers, more exposed  —  17.6 million driver's license numbers, thousands of ID images stolen in breach.  —  On May 7, executives of Equifax submitted a …
Dani Deahl / The Verge:
Google unveils redesigned Google News, based on its Material Design language, with aim of helping surface stories and supporting publications, rolling out today  —  Google is giving Google News a refresh that brings all its news products into one experience, the company announced at its annual developer's conference.
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Google says it's using DeepMind's AI to improve battery life in Android P by learning user habits to increase efficiency  —  No surprise here, Android P was the highlight of today's Google I/O keynote.  The new version of the company's mobile operating system still doesn't have a name …
More: YouTube and EngadgetTweets: @zackwhittaker
Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed:
Despite Amazon's efforts, paid reviewers who organize via Reddit, Slack, Discord, and Facebook are still flooding the site with fake reviews  —  One morning in late January, Jake picked up the box on his desk, tore through the packing tape, unearthed the iPhone case inside, snapped a picture …
Washington Post:
The White House will host a summit on AI on Thursday, convening executives from Amazon, Facebook, Google, Intel, and 34 other major US companies  —  The White House on Thursday plans to convene executives from Amazon, Facebook, Google, Intel and 34 other major U.S. companies as it seeks …
Thomas Claburn / The Register:
Microsoft says it will give app developers an 85%-95% cut for all non-game apps, up from current 70%; new fee structure will go into effect later this year  —  Planned dev deal tweak lets programmers keep 95 per cent of revenue  —  Build Microsoft says it will take less money …
Elizabeth Segran / Fast Company:
Instagram announces new tools for businesses including improved DMs and integrations for booking events with OpenTable, Fandango, Eventbrite, Yelp, others  —  If you spend as much time on Instagram as I do, you may have run into the following problem: You're scrolling through the app …
Matthew Lynley / TechCrunch:
Slack says it has 8M DAUs with 3M paid users, up from 6M DAUs it announced last September  —  As Slack looks to woo larger and larger companies with the prospect of a simpler workplace collaboration tool, the company said it has now hit 8 million daily active users.  —  The company said it also has 3 million paid users.
David Shepardson / Reuters:
Uber hires former NTSB chairman to advise the company on its safety culture; report says that a software flaw was responsible for the fatal accident in March  —  (Reuters) - Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] said Monday it has hired a former National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) …

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:
Introducing Zoho Expense Integrated Travel solution : The Smarter Way to Manage Business Travel  —  Business travel has become increasingly complex.  Employees expect consumer-grade booking experiences …
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

Great Chat:
Tech's short-term era
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.
Access:
Meet the most AI-pilled CEO on Earth
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Basis's Matt Harpe: Why AI Won't Replace Accountants — It'll Make Them Richer
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Lucas Shaw on Warner Bros' Limbo, Netflix's Anxiety, and Hollywood's Sort-of Comeback
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
How China Caught U.S. AI — With Grace Shao
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.
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 3:00 PM ET, May 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

Google AI Blog:
Press Association:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Nathaniel Popper / New York Times:
Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch: