Techmeme
October 3, 2018, 9:50 AM

Top News

Matt Weinberger / Business Insider:
Microsoft debuts Surface Studio 2, coming November 15 from $3,499, with 50% faster graphics and a 28" display that's 38% brighter than the first generation  —  - Meet the Microsoft Surface Studio 2: a big, beautiful, all-in-one PC that will be available on November 15th at a starting price of $3,499.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft unveils Surface Pro 6 with a black finish and Intel 8th-gen chips, claims 13.5 hour battery life, 67% faster than predecessor, coming Oct. 16 for $899  —  A new internal design, but still no USB-C  —  Microsoft is refreshing its Surface Pro tablet / laptop hybrid today.
David Carnoy / CNET:
Microsoft unveils noise canceling Surface Headphones with up to 15 hours of battery life, dial controls on each earcup, Cortana; coming this year in US for $350  —  Sure, Microsoft has new Surface PCs.  But what the company unveiled alongside those products on Tuesday is a total surprise.
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
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 …
Issie Lapowsky / Wired:
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.
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 …
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.
Nico Grant / Bloomberg:
Cloud-based customer service software provider Talkdesk raises $100M, led by Connecticut-based hedge fund Viking Global Investors LP at a $1B+ valuation  —  Most people dread calling customer service.  The endless wait times, tedium of repeating your information multiple times …
Leticia Miranda / BuzzFeed News:
A look inside Amazon's new 4,000 sq. ft. 4-Star store in NYC, which sells seemingly random items that all match their price online, has human cashiers, and more  —  It had $20 kitchen mittens resembling dog paws; $16 USB cables; a corn kernel stripper for $7.99; a $15 mug that reads, “Believe in yourself.”
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Alexis Ohanian and Garry Tan's VC firm Initialized Capital raises $225M for its fourth fund  —  “Right now we're in this Empire Strikes Back moment” says Initialized Capital's Garry Tan, referring to tech giants ruthlessly copying and competing with fresh ideas.  “We think the startups represent the Return Of The Jedi.”
Theodore Schleifer / Recode:
Sources: Coinbase is in talks to raise up to $500M at an $8B valuation, with Tiger Global leading the round  —  The company is in talks with Tiger Global and its existing shareholders for an investment of up to $500 million.  —  Coinbase is finalizing a deal that would value the company …

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.
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
Pro tips: 5 ways to close WhatsApp leads in Zoho CRM  —  This is a guest post by Orkhan Jafarli, Growth PM at TimelinesAI.More buyers now reach out on WhatsApp before they ever fill out a form.
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

Big Technology Podcast:
What Happens If AI Fails?, Subprime Data Center Crisis, How Bad Can SpaceX Get?
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:
OpenAI Models Go Rogue + Kimi K3 Freakout + A.I. Superforecasting
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.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'A Scam Held Together With Patriotism and Golden Paint', With Quinn Nelson
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Abridge's Shiv Rao: The Doctor Founder Taking On Microsoft In Healthcare AI
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.
Great Chat:
Too big to laugh: how tech lost its sense of humor
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.
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 9:50 AM ET, October 3, 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

Apple:
Connie Loizos / TechCrunch:
Mark Graham / Internet Archive Blogs:
Khari Johnson / VentureBeat:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Sara Salinas / CNBC: