Techmeme
October 4, 2018, 9:50 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: Chinese spies inserted tiny chips onto products from US-based motherboard giant Supermicro to infiltrate ~30 US companies including Amazon and Apple  —  In 2015, Amazon.com Inc. began quietly evaluating a startup called Elemental Technologies, a potential acquisition to help …
Apple:
Apple says it has never found malicious chips in its servers, calls Bloomberg reporters' claims unsubstantiated and untrue, says it is not under a gag order  —  The October 8, 2018 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek incorrectly reports that Apple found “malicious chips” in servers on its network in 2015.
Bloomberg:
Amazon, Apple, Supermicro, and the Chinese government issue statements disputing the allegations of Bloomberg Businessweek's hacking story  —  Complete text.  —  In emailed statements, Amazon, Apple, and Supermicro disputed summaries of Bloomberg Businessweek's reporting.
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Sources describe the internal turmoil at Facebook following Joel Kaplan's appearance in support of Brett Kavanaugh during his testimony to Congress last week  —  SAN FRANCISCO — “I want to apologize,” the Facebook executive wrote last Friday in a note to staff.
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Instagram begins rolling out Nametag, which displays usernames in a format that can easily be scanned by others  —  It's also testing School Community bios at some US universities  —  Instagram is rolling out a new way to quickly follow people you've met in real life.
BBC:
US DOJ indicts seven GRU officers with charges relating to cyberattacks on the global chemical weapons watchdog, anti-doping agencies, and a US nuclear company  —  Russian spies have been accused of involvement in a series of cyber-plots across the globe, leading the US to level charges against seven agents.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Google says Assistant users can now compare ride-hailing prices and book a ride from Uber, Lyft, Ola, Grab, Go-Jek, and more  —  But you still need your phone to complete the request  —  After announcing some updates to the Google Assistant user experience yesterday, today Google is rolling …
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Leaked documents show Macs with T2 chips must pass Apple diagnostics, which is limited to internal use by Apple, or be rendered nonfunctional after repair  —  Due to advanced security features of the Apple T2 chip, iMac Pro and 2018 MacBook Pro models must pass Apple diagnostics for certain repairs …
Jimmy Westenberg / Android Authority:
HMD unveils Nokia 7.1, a $350 Android One phone with 5.8" display, Snapdragon 636, 3GB of RAM, and dual cameras; preorder starting Friday, ships Oct. 28  —  After weeks of leaked specs and images, HMD Global has finally made the Nokia 7.1 official.  This Android One-powered affordable handset …
Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch:
Bird announces Bird Delivery, which brings scooters to users' homes or offices in six cities, and unveils Bird Zero, a rugged scooter with a digital screen  —  Bird, the electric scooter sharing startup worth $2 billion, is further differentiating itself from the rest of the pack with the launch of custom, rugged electric scooters.
More: The Verge
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 …
Steven Melendez / Fast Company:
MIT/Qatar project aims to use machine learning to detect fake news sites, taking into account their content, URLs, Wikipedia pages and Twitter presence  —  Thanks to social media, it's easy to come across reporting from unfamiliar news sources around the world.

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.
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
App Spotlight: Grow Payments for Zoho CRM  —  App Spotlight brings you hand-picked solutions that enhance your Zoho apps and tools.  Visit Zoho Marketplace to explore all of our apps, integrations …
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:
OpenAI Finally Ships Its Superapp, Meta's AI Price War, ChatGPT Cheating At Brown
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.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Radical AI's Joseph Krause: The Scientist Building The 'Waymo' Lab For New Materials
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.
Hard Fork:
Do Social Media Bans Work? + A Conversation About A.I. Consciousness + Tool Time
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.
Access:
The AI writing app fighting AI slop
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Lenny's Podcast:
Adam Mosseri: AI is a tailwind for authenticity
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.
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 PM ET, October 4, 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