Techmeme
October 3, 2018, 3:40 PM

Top News

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google launches a redesign for its Assistant app on Android and iOS, including introducing larger visuals and controls for smart devices  —  Google today is launching a major visual redesign of its Assistant experience on phones.  While the original vision of the Assistant focused mostly on voice …
Stephen Shankland / CNET:
Wi-Fi Alliance rebrands 802.11n as Wi-Fi 4, 802.11ac as Wi-Fi 5, and the upcoming 802.11ax as Wi-Fi 6  —  Quick quiz: Which is better, 802.11n or 802.11ac?  —  The answer, if you're familiar with Wi-Fi standards coming from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, is 802.11ac …
Guy Rosen / Facebook:
Facebook says it has found no evidence “so far” that hackers accessed connected third-party apps and is building a dev tool to help log out affected users  —  We wanted to provide an update on the security attack that we announced that week.  This was a serious issue and we worked fast …
Laura Stevens / Wall Street Journal:
In cease-and-desist letter, eBay alleges that ~50 Amazon sales representatives worldwide used eBay's messaging system to try and poach sellers from its platform  —  In a cease-and-desist letter, EBay alleges Amazon sales representatives sent more than 1,000 messages to sellers on its platform
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Amazon unveils Fire TV stick with 4K, Dolby Atmos, and HDR10+ support, with a new Alexa Voice Remote, for $50, available for preorder now, ships October 31  —  After years of offering 4K playback on its higher-end Fire TV devices, Amazon is ready to bring that extra resolution to its most affordable hardware.
Owen Williams / Charged Tech Blog:
After years of trying, and as Apple increasingly drops the ball, Microsoft's hardware event showed a coherent and appealing lineup of PCs, desktops, and tablets  —  At a low-key event held in a New York City warehouse, Microsoft unveiled its next iterations in the Surface lineup.
Tweets: @brianmcc, @ow, @ow, @ow, @ow, and @michaelgillett
Matt Weinberger / Business Insider:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Karl Bode / Motherboard:
Report: after years of steady decline, BitTorrent usage is once again growing, thanks to the fragmentation of streaming services with exclusive content  —  BitTorrent usage has bounced back because there's too many streaming services, and too much exclusive content.
David McCabe / Axios:
US government ran its first nationwide test of its wireless emergency alert system at 2:18PM ET today, with a message going to all US wireless users  —  Federal officials on Wednesday afternoon will run the first nationwide test of the wireless emergency alert system.
Tim Fernholz / Quartz:
GM and Honda partner to develop autonomous vehicles, with Honda investing $750M in GM's Cruise Automation subsidiary and contributing $2B towards development  —  Japan is bringing big money to self-driving car partnerships: General Motors has struck a new alliance with Honda to produce …
Zeynep Tufekci / New York Times:
More worrisome than foreign interference in US elections is how tech companies feed and profit from deepening domestic political polarization  —  More worrisome than foreign interference in our elections is how our own tech and media companies feed and profit from our deepening domestic political polarization.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Facebook confirms it recently increased the grace period to reinstate an account a user chooses to terminate from 14 to 30 days  —  Best to deactivate now if you want your data deleted  —  Facebook recently extended the deletion grace period for terminating your main account from 14 to 30 days, the company confirmed to The Verge.
More: VentureBeat and 9to5Mac

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Earlier Picks

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Sara Salinas / CNBC: