Techmeme
October 3, 2018, 6:05 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 home 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 …
Spencer Soper / Bloomberg:
Amazon is eliminating monthly bonuses and stock awards for US warehouse workers after raising wage to $15/hour; sources say bonuses could be hundreds per month  —  - Some long-time workers say the changes make their raises less  — Amazon says all workers will see overall compensation increase
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.
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
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
LG V40 ThinQ review: 6.4" QuadHD display, 6GB of RAM, Snapdragon 845, available for preorder now for $900+; five camera system is versatile but not high-quality  —  The V40 gives you a camera bag full of lenses in one device  —  All too often, when we evaluate smartphone cameras, we are looking at incremental improvements.
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.
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 …
Wall Street Journal:
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.
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.
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.
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Microsoft announces its Windows 10 October 2018 Update is rolling out today, the OS' sixth update so far  —  Microsoft today announced that the free Windows 10 October 2018 Update is rolling out today.  For those keeping track, this update is Windows 10 build 17763 and will bring Windows 10 to version 1809.
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.
Eli Rosenberg / Washington Post:
Facebook blocks advertisements mentioning LGBT themes and words like “gender-neutral” for being political, says majority of rejections were in error  —  The advertisements all seemed innocuous at a glance.  —  A ribald sendup of fairy tales hosted by a comedian in Los Angeles.
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