Techmeme
March 19, 2019, 1:28 PM

Top News

Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Apple updates iMac lineup with Intel's 8th-gen and 9th-gen Core CPUs and AMD's Radeon Pro Vega GPUs; 21.5" starts at $1,299, 27" 5K at $1,799, available today  —  Nearly two years have passed since Apple last refreshed the iMac, but updates are finally here for both 4K and 5K models.
Emma Sandler / Digiday:
Instagram adds in-app shopping to let users buy from 20 beauty and fashion brands including Kylie Cosmetics, Nike, and Huda Beauty  —  Shopping on Instagram is about to change forever.  —  On March 19, the social platform announced in a blog post it was launching a beta shopping program …
Chris Sonderby / Facebook:
Facebook says original Christchurch attack video was viewed <200 times during live broadcast; first user report came in 12 minutes after live broadcast ended  —  Our hearts go out to the victims, their families and the community affected by the horrific terrorist attacks in Christchurch.
Charlie Warzel / New York Times:
Instead of focusing only on moderation, the debate around New Zealand massacre should look at how platforms incentivize and provide infrastructure for extremism  —  It's time for a real conversation about the infrastructure and incentives that Big Tech provides far-right extremists.
Jane Lytvynenko / BuzzFeed News:
YouTube:
Livestream of Google's keynote at the Game Developers Conference  —  Gather around as we unveil Google's vision for the future of gaming at #GDC19.  —  Live 3/19 at 10AM PDT.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Peter Kafka / Recode:
Reed Hastings confirms that Netflix won't be offering its content through Apple's upcoming video service  —  In other news: Turns out Netflix is not a tech company, Hastings says.  —  Apple is planning a big announcement to unveil its new video strategy next week, and there is a long list of unknowns about Apple's plans.
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Microsoft Teams says it is now used by 500,000 organizations, including 91 of the Fortune 100, and promises eight new features, three available today  —  Microsoft Teams, which launched worldwide in March 2017, turns two years old this week.  To celebrate, Microsoft is sharing some news …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
A look at an iPhone prototype board from 2006-2007, when the device was codenamed “M68” and “Purple 2” within Apple  —  “This is a day I've been looking forward to for two and half years,” said Steve Jobs, Apple's late CEO, as he introduced the original iPhone on January 9th, 2007.
Kaiser Health News:
Report: US has spent $36B digitizing health records, which has risked patient safety with thousands of reports of deaths and injuries tied to software glitches  —  The U.S. government claimed that turning American medical charts into electronic records would make health care better, safer, and cheaper.
Juliegrace Brufke / The Hill:
Rep. Devin Nunes is suing Twitter and some of its users for defamation, alleging Twitter is shadow banning conservatives, seeks $250M+ in damages  —  House Intelligence Committee ranking member and former chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) is suing Twitter and a number of its users for more than $250 million.
Scott Stein / CNET:
HP Reverb, a lightweight $600 VR headset that's slated to arrive late April, has ~24 pixels per degree vs. ~14 on the Vive Pro, but pixels are still discernable  —  Virtual reality headsets are going through a hardware evolution, slowly, with eye tracking, wireless connections, wider fields of view and higher resolutions.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Norsk Hydro, one of the world's largest producers of aluminum, has shut down several metal extrusion plants as it deals with a ransomware attack  —  UPDATE: Cyber-attack identified as LockerGoga ransomware infection.  —  Norsk Hydro, one of the world's largest aluminium producers …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Starting June 19, Twitter will require any app that has 100K+ calls/day for certain APIs to submit their app for review and will force B2B devs to pay  —  To prevent its own Cambridge Analytica and make sure it's getting paid for its data, Twitter will audit developers using its APIs.
More: Twitter
TechCrunch:
A roundup of the 85+ companies that launched at Y Combinator's Winter 2019 Demo Day 1, including medical, AI, on-demand, e-commerce, and robotics startups  —  Y Combinator's incubator classes have gotten huge.  —  With over 200 companies, the Winter 2019 class is by far YC's largest yet.
Stephen Hall / 9to5Google:
Source: Google's upcoming lower-priced Pixel phones will be called Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL with 5.6- and 6-inch displays; 3a to feature Snapdragon 670, 4GB RAM  —  According to a source familiar with the phones, the forthcoming mid-range Google Pixels are indeed called the “Google Pixel 3a” …

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Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Cory Doctorow / Boing Boing:
Apple: