Techmeme
January 23, 2019, 4:25 PM

Top News

Day One: The Amazon Blog:
Amazon says it is field testing Amazon Scout, a small autonomous six-wheeled delivery robot, in Snohomish County, Washington  —  Delivery ,Washington,Technology,Innovation  —  At Amazon, we continually invest in new technologies to benefit customers.  We've been hard at work developing a new …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Google launches YouTube TV in 95 new US markets, says it now covers 98% of US households  —  98 percent of US households are covered as of today, with the rest coming soon  —  YouTube TV is finally nearing nationwide availability.  The streaming TV service first launched in February 2017 …
Reuters:
Waymo to invest $13.6M in a factory for level 4 autonomous cars in Michigan, partnering with Magna to install Waymo's self-driving system in cars made by others  —  (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's Waymo self-driving vehicle unit said on Tuesday it plans to build a plant in Michigan to transform vehicles …
Jim Waterson / The Guardian:
Microsoft is automatically installing NewsGuard, a plug-in that guides users on which news websites can be trusted, on mobile versions of its Edge browser  —  Mail Online rated one out of five for credibility by new feature to fight fake news  —  Microsoft's internet browser is warning users …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
After Netflix price hikes, Hulu will lower its base, ad-supported subscription plan to $6/mo, down from $8/mo, and hike its Live TV service to $45/mo on Feb. 26  —  The core service is getting cheaper, but live TV now costs more  —  Hulu just announced that it will lower the price of its base …
Paresh Dave / Reuters:
Google spent $21.2M on US govt lobbying in 2018, up from $18.04M in 2017; Facebook spent $12.62M, up from $11.51M; and Microsoft spent $9.52M, up from $8.5M  —  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google disclosed on Tuesday that it spent a company-record $21.2 million on lobbying …
Steven T. Wright / Ars Technica:
A look at the history of LiveJournal, the early blogging platform that boasted 10M+ accounts at its height but faltered after questionable business decisions  —  George RR Martin's platform switch reminds us of an early blogging giant greatly changed.  —  Last April, famed writer …
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Confluent, the company behind open source streaming data project Apache Kafka, raises $125M Series D led by Sequoia Capital, source says at a $2.5B valuation  —  Open source software has produced a new multi-billion-dollar company - one that has some of Silicon Valley's best-known venture firms jockeying …
Aaron Mackey / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Federal prosecutors and US court in Seattle agree to publish info on warrantless surveillance requests, will disclose case numbers and crime being investigated  —  The public will learn how often federal investigators in Seattle obtain private details about your communications …
Joshua Brustein / Bloomberg:
Andela, which trains and places African programmers to work remotely for US companies, raises $100M Series D from Al Gore's Generation Investment Management  —  Outsourcing isn't generally seen as the most high-minded of industries.  But when the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative …
Anthony D'Alessandro / Deadline:
The Motion Picture Association of America has added Netflix as a member, the first internet-based service to be added  —  UPDATED with Netflix officially joining: It's official, Netflix is a member of the MPAA.  The Washington, DC-based organization just dropped the following release:

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.
Zoho:
WhatsApp messages for events: Zoho Backstage enhancements  —  Event communication involves more than just sending updates to attendees.  In an event's lifecycle, organizers coordinate with purchasers, speakers …
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

Channels with Peter Kafka:
The Weird, Big Business of Microdramas
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Big Technology Podcast:
How AI Should Handle News, Politics, Medicine, and Mental Health — With Campbell 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.
Training Data:
Parallel's Parag Agrawal: Building a New Web for AI Agents
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Invest Like the Best:
Neil Movva - Making AI 10x Cheaper
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Grit:
Data Centers in Orbit by 2028: Baiju Bhatt on His Plans After Robinhood
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
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 4:25 PM ET, January 23, 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.

More News

Sara Fischer / Axios:
Pushkala Aripaka / Reuters:

Earlier Picks

Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Sam Levin / The Guardian:
Sean Lyngaas / CyberScoop:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Apple: