Techmeme
July 16, 2019, 2:30 PM

Top News

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Highlights from the Senate hearing with Facebook's David Marcus on the proposed Libra cryptocurrency, and what was left unanswered  —  Facebook will only build its own Calibra cryptocurrency wallet into Messenger and Whatsapp, and will refuse to embed competing wallets …
Bloomberg:
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says he has serious concerns about Facebook's Libra, joining Trump and other officials including the Federal Reserve chairman  —  - Treasury Secretary says he has serious concerns about coin  — Facebook executive says crypto won't launch without approvals
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Trump threatens to “take a look” at Google for alleged China ties, in a tweet that cited claims Peter Thiel made at a conference and repeated on Fox News  —  President Trump on Tuesday appeared to threaten that his administration would “take a look” at Google …
Bloomberg:
Meredith Whittaker, who helped lead employee protests at Google over its military and AI work, and sexual harassment policies, is leaving the company  —  Meredith Whittaker, who helped lead employee protests at Google over the search giant's military work, artificial intelligence and policies, is leaving the company.
VICE:
Inside a lawsuit against Girls Do Porn, one of Pornhub's popular channels, which 22 women allege post videos without proper consent, leading to doxxing and more  —  Pornhub is hosting videos that have been viewed hundreds of millions of times.  The women in them say they thought the videos …
Press Association:
Facebook introduces a scam ads reporting tool in the UK and donates £3M to Citizens Advice for Scams Action, a dedicated online anti-scam service  —  Social media firm to investigate users' complaints and take down violating posts  —  Fresh efforts to tackle scam adverts across Facebook …
Robert Lee Hotz / Wall Street Journal:
A look at the Apollo 11's guidance computer, the first digital general-purpose, multitasking, interactive portable computer, with about 145K lines of code  —  The moon landing was one of the most important moments in the history of computing, laying the foundations of much of our digital world
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Facebook makes its first changes to Workplace pricing, raising the premium tier by $1/person/month and introducing a new $8 Workplace Enterprise tier  —  Three years into its life with 2 million paying users signed up, Workplace — Facebook's platform for businesses and and other organizations …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Sprint says hackers had access to customers' names, billing, device details, and more via Samsung's website, fails to disclose the number affected  —  Hackers had access to customer info such as names, billing, device details, and more.  —  US mobile network operator Sprint said hackers broke …
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Uber open sources Plato, a tool for developing and testing conversational AI across many deep learning frameworks including TensorFlow and PyTorch  —  Designing conversational AI isn't as Sysiphean as it sounds.  Tools like Google's Dialogflow, Microsoft's Bot Framework …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
In the next Windows 10 update, expected to arrive in September, Microsoft will allow voice assistants like Amazon's Alexa to activate on the lock screen  —  New changes coming later this year  —  Microsoft is opening up Windows 10 even further to third-party digital assistants.
Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed News:
Feeling unwelcome to share opinions within Google, its conservative staffers have leaked internal info to generate pressure on Google from Republican lawmakers  —  On Jan. 16, Republican lawmakers turned on one of the world's biggest tech companies.  —  A month earlier, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told …
Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News:
Researcher: software from RingCentral and Zhumu, which license Zoom's tech, is affected by the same flaw in Zoom that could give attackers access to Mac cameras  —  The fallout from Zoom's massive webcam vulnerability continues.  In a report published today, security researcher Karan Lyons shows …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26  —  Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Zoho:
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control  —  Picture this: It's Monday morning.  You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
IDrive:
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.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's 2026 Priority, Disney's AI Play, Datacenter Buildout Trouble
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.
Hard Fork:
Australia Kicks Kids Off Social Media + Is the A.I. Water Issue Fake? + Hard Fork Wrapped
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:
Why the next AI frontier is phone calls, with Beside CEO Maxime Germain
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Great Chat:
So what happens after AGI?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Lachlan Cartwright Started in Tabloids. Now He's a Must-Read Media Gossip.
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:30 PM ET, July 16, 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

CNN:

Earlier Picks

Dell Cameron / Gizmodo:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Thomas Franck / CNBC:
Jon Fingas / Engadget: