| Joseph Cox / Motherboard: |
Investigation shows how easy and affordable it is to obtain cellphone customers' real-time location data, as T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T peddle it to middlemen — T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T are selling access to their customers' location data, and that data is ending up in the hands … | Dieter Bohn / The Verge: |
Google makes over a dozen announcements for Google Assistant at CES, including Google Assistant Connect for third-party developers and flight check-ins — Today, Google is showing off auto-translation on smart display speakers, letting you naturally talk to each other with the speaker acting as the translator automatically.| Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch: |
Google Assistant is coming to Google Maps on iOS and Android today, will help users with navigation, music, and replying to texts, now with auto-punctuation — We've known for a while now that Google Assistant (the company's voice powered AI, a la Siri or Alexa) would eventually be built right into Google Maps.| Lauren Goode / Wired: |
Google debuts Interpreter Mode in Google Assistant for smart displays and speakers to translate languages in real time for people in the same physical space — OVER THE PAST year Google has been making its virtual assistant, the eponymous Google Assistant, more capable of handling … | Nick Statt / The Verge: |
| Mark Zuckerberg: |
| Axios: |
Amazon is quietly piloting a program for brands like Folgers to pay to send free samples to Amazon users, who are likely to enjoy them based on order history — Amazon is quietly piloting a program to let brands like Maybelline and Folgers pay to send free samples to consumers … | Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC: |
Over a dozen ex-Facebook employees detail how the company's leaders and stacked ranking performance reviews foster a culture where any dissent is discouraged — - More than a dozen former Facebook employees detailed how the company's leadership and its performance review system has created a culture where any dissent is discouraged.| Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: |
Self-driving vehicle startup Udelv debuts the Newton, its delivery van using Baidu's Apollo platform, and says some Walmarts in AZ will trial deliveries with it — Udelv has had an eventful 2018 — and that's putting it lightly. In September, the Carson, California autonomous car startup inked … | Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: |
IBM unveils its first commercial quantum computer, a 20-qubit system that combines quantum and classical computing parts but is still lacking breakthrough speed — At CES, IBM today announced its first commercial quantum computer for use outside of the lab.| Sarah Frier / Bloomberg: |
Customers have been annoyed by Samsung's deal to pre-install Facebook on devices, including Galaxy phones, because the app can only be disabled, not deleted — - Galaxy owners take to Twitter to complain about permanent app — Pre-install deals are common, but privacy concerns are rising| Edgar Alvarez / Engadget: |
Twitter says it is launching a program to let a limited set of users try out new conversational features with their followers in the coming weeks — Twitter is launching a new program to let users reshape how conversations on its site look and feel, the company announced today in an interview with Engadget at CES 2019.| Vlad Savov / The Verge: |
Royole unveils FlexPai, a hybrid device that measures 7.8 inches in tablet form and becomes two Android phones when closed; available now in China for ~$1,320 — You asked for this — The Royole FlexPai is the sort of device that companies rush out when they feel the absolute imperative to be first with some new technology.| Rita Liao / TechCrunch: |
Chinese startup Nreal unveils Light, consumer AR glasses about the size of a pair of sunglasses, slated to launch mid-2019 for ~$1,000 — A former Magic Leap engineer believes the problem with most consumer-facing augmented headsets on the market is their bulky size.| Theodore Schleifer / Recode: |
Sources: self-driving startup Aurora is raising $500M+ at a $2B+ valuation in a round led by Sequoia — Aurora's appeal is predicated on three well-credentialed founders from Google, Tesla, and Uber. — The startup Aurora — which is not yet two years old but has made waves … | Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
Amid a legal fight in LA over alleged data-mining practices, IBM's Weather Company unveils hyperlocal weather forecasts, which tap users' smartphone sensor data — While IBM is getting sued by the city of Los Angeles, accusing it of covertly mining user data in the Weather Channel app in the US … | Taylor Soper / GeekWire: |
Report: VC funding in US startups reached $99.5B in 2018, the highest since 2000, in a total of 5,536 deals, the lowest since 2013 — U.S. startups are raising investment dollars at levels unseen since the dot-com era. — Venture capital funding in U.S. companies reached $99.5 billion in 2018 … | Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge: |
Comcast now offers Xfinity customers additional security protection on home networks for $5.99/month with xFi Advanced Security, which can quarantine devices — Better internet protection, for a price — Comcast has announced a new service as part of its Xfinity xFi internet platform at CES 2019 … | Taylor Lorenz / The Atlantic: |
Instagram accounts were allegedly coordinating sharing of child porn using hashtags, then a viral campaign spotlighted it, and finally Instagram banned the tags — A hashtag war has been brewing on Instagram between users who appear to be trading child pornography and the memers intent on stopping them.| Todd Spangler / Variety: |
Hulu says it passed 25M subscribers at the end of 2018, a ~47% YoY increase, with avg. daily watch time up 20% for the year; ad revenue rose 45%+ YoY to ~$1.5B — Hulu is keeping its pedal to metal in the streaming TV race: The company said it ended 2018 with more than 25 million total subscribers …
Try Gemini 3 Pro — Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Transform ML Experimentation with Tangle — Save months of compute time with Tangle, built by Shopify. Try this open-source platform to simplify ML workflows, ensure reproducibility, and seamlessly share with collaborators.
Contract Signed. Project Ready. Tasks Created. — Every project begins with a promise; a contract that outlines the deliverables, the timelines, and the terms. But for most businesses …
Bitrix24 powers the next generation of high-performing businesses — Chat, projects, CRM, and automation — all in one place. Replace dozens of tools so your team moves faster, collaborates smarter, and grows effortlessly.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:55 AM ET, January 9, 2019.
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.
| Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge: |
| Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: |
| Melissa Eddy / New York Times: |
| Andrew Ross Sorkin / New York Times: |
| Sam Kim / Bloomberg: |