Techmeme
October 4, 2018, 2:55 AM

Top News

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.
Chris Velazco / Engadget:
LG announces Watch W7 with a 1.2" display, mechanical hands, Android Wear, Snapdragon 2100 chipset, and a watch-only mode, available Oct. 14 for $449  —  Android Wear recently got a substantial overhaul, and now it needs some fancy new hardware to run on.  That's where LG's new Watch W7 comes in.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google launches a redesign for its Assistant app on Android and iOS, introduces 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 …
Brian Fung / Washington Post:
US government ran the first nationwide test of its wireless emergency alert system at 2:18PM ET today, with a message going to all US wireless users  —  Beginning at 2:18 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday, Americans across the country were interrupted by an urgent notification on their cellphones.
Frank Chaparro / The Block:
TD Ameritrade and a slew of Wall Street firms invest an undisclosed amount in cryptocurrency exchange ErisX, which plans to launch spot trading in Q2 2019  —  Brokerage giant TD Ameritrade, a slew of high-speed traders, and a long list of Wall Street firms are getting behind a brand new market …
Ryan Gilliam / Polygon:
Blizzard co-founder Michael Morhaime steps down as president, will remain an advisor, is succeeded by World of Warcraft executive producer J. Allen Brack  —  World of Warcraft executive producer J. Allen Brack is new president  —  Mike Morhaime, co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment …
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
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Hortonworks and Cloudera announce all-stock merger valuing the new company at $5.2B; the two companies helped commercialize Hadoop open-source big data software  —  Cloudera stock jumped 17 percent on Wednesday after it announced an all-stock merger of equals with competitor Hortonworks.
Takashi Mochizuki / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Nintendo plans to release a new version of Switch in the latter half of 2019, perhaps as soon as summer  —  Updated console isn't expected to adopt the OLED panels used in Apple's iPhone X series  —  TOKYO— Nintendo Co. NTDOY -1.78% plans to release a new version …
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 …
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.
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:
CNBC:
Barnes & Noble to look at strategic alternatives including a possible sale, after receiving interest from multiple parties including Chairman Leonard Riggio  —  - The announcement follows expressions of interest from multiple parties, including its chairman Leonard Riggio, it said in a statement.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook is testing a redesigned version of Nearby Friends that looks a lot like Snap Map  —  Helping friends meet up offline has been a massive missed opportunity for Facebook .  Whether because the brand is too creepy or the politely opt-in 2015 rollout of its location sharing feature …
More: 9to5Mac and Engadget
Karen Freifeld / Reuters:
US judge finds ZTE violated probation imposed in 2017, extends term of a monitor appointed to assess ZTE's compliance with US export control laws by two years  —  (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Wednesday issued an order finding that China's ZTE Corp violated probation imposed in March 2017 …
More: CNET
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.

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More News

Craig Timberg / Washington Post:

Earlier Picks

Zeynep Tufekci / New York Times:
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Jon Fingas / Engadget: