Techmeme
May 8, 2018, 7:10 PM

Top News

Kurt Wagner / Recode:
Sources: Facebook appoints CPO Chris Cox to lead Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger apps; CTO Mike Schroepfer to oversee AR/VR, AI, blockchain, more  —  WhatsApp, Messenger and Facebook's core app are getting new leaders as part of a massive executive reorg.
Kurt Wagner / Recode:
Sources: Facebook launching new team of fewer than 12 to explore blockchain tech, led by David Marcus and including Instagram's VPs of engineering and product  —  What is the blockchain?  Facebook wants to find out, too.  —  What is the blockchain?  And how should Facebook be using it?
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.
Google AI Blog:
Breakdown of how Google Duplex works, with several audio examples of how the assistant would interact over the phone, handling interruptions, elaborating, more  —  Posted by Yaniv Leviathan, Principal Engineer and Yossi Matias, Vice President, Engineering, Google
Richard Nieva / CNET:
A look at Google's experimental Duplex tech, demoed at I/O, enabling Assistant to place voice calls for you, make restaurant and barber reservations, more  —  The conversation seems mundane.  At least, at first.  —  In a building called the Partnerplex on Google's sprawling campus in Mountain View …
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 …
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.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
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.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple's iOS 11.4, currently in beta, introduces USB Restricted Mode that disables Lightning port after a week of not entering passcode  —  The iOS 11.4 update, currently being beta tested, includes a USB Restricted Mode that introduces a week-long expiration date on access to the Lightning port …
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.
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 …
Swapna Krishna / Engadget:
Nintendo announces its $20/year online service for Switch, lets users back up game data to cloud, gives access to 20 NES games; no plans for a Virtual Console  —  The announcement of an online service for the Nintendo Switch yesterday raised more questions than answers, it seems.

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 MCP for Zoho People: Turn conversations into HR actions  —  It's Monday morning.  You start your day by reviewing leave requests that came in over the weekend.  A new hire needs help completing …
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

Lenny's Podcast:
AI's third era: the rise of persistent AI coworkers | Tara Seshan (Product Lead ChatGPT Work)
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:
Software's Epic Comeback, Meta's AI Layoffs Blunder, South Korea Stock Market Chaos
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:
Meta Shifts the Blame + Do Data Center Bans Work? + The Final HatGPT
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
The Weird, Big Business of Microdramas
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:
Parallel's Parag Agrawal: Building a New Web for AI Agents
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 7:10 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