Techmeme
August 3, 2019, 3:10 PM

Top News

Nick Statt / The Verge:
Goldman Sachs reveals Apple Card customer agreement, says jailbreaking as well as purchasing cryptocurrency, casino chips, and lottery tickets is forbidden  —  Apple has revealed more details about its upcoming credit card, and the Apple Card will come with one unique restriction and one not-so-unique restriction.
Alex Heath / The Information:
Facebook to rebrand Instagram and WhatsApp to “Instagram from Facebook” and “WhatsApp from Facebook”, sources say causing surprise and confusion internally  —  In a big shift, Facebook plans to signal its control of Instagram and WhatsApp by adding its name to both apps …
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Amazon says it will let users opt out of human review of the voice recordings picked up by Alexa, following similar moves by Apple and Google  —  - Alexa reviewers transcribe, annotate some voice recordings  — Apple, Google suspended human voice review programs this week
Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:
Melanie Ehrenkranz / Gizmodo:
UK data science company DataSparQ has developed “AI Bar”, an AI-powered facial recognition system to help bartenders check IDs, fill orders faster and fairer  —  Facial recognition systems have, to date, proven to be biased, unjust, flawed, and deeply powerful.
Thomas Ricker / The Verge:
Google will let Android users in Europe choose their default search engine starting in 2020; inclusion on the choice screen will be determined via auction  —  Only the top-three bidders will appear alongside Google on the choice screen  —  Starting in early 2020, Google will present …
Zen Soo / South China Morning Post:
Hong Kong startup Tink Labs, which has raised $160M to provide free-to-use smartphones in hotel rooms, is shutting down in many markets, undergoing mass layoffs  —  Handy is a smartphone service operated by Tink Labs that equipped hotels globally with in-room handsets for guests Tink Labs informed employees …
Mark Harris / The Guardian:
FCC filing: Pentagon tests high-altitude balloons in Midwest for a “surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats”  —  Exclusive: the high-altitude balloons promise a cheap monitoring platform that could follow multiple cars and boats for extended periods
Reuters:
Turkey's TV and radio watchdog granted oversight of online content, including streaming services; online content providers must now get broadcasting licenses  —  ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey on Thursday granted its radio and television watchdog sweeping oversight over all online content …
Mark Wilson / Fast Company:
Interview with Snap CTO Bobby Murphy on augmented reality, visual communications, Lenses, Spectacles, and a future world in which the camera dominates  —  When Snapchat first became a phenomenon among teens in 2012, the focus understandably was on such distinguishing features as its promise …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google Fit to start rolling out detailed sleep logging and dark theme; iOS app gains support for route maps for workouts  —  With the revamped Fit last year, Google focused on physical activity through Heart Points and Move Minutes.  The service is adding detailed sleep logging to capture your entire day …

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.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference  —  Stop preparing for agents.  Start running them.  100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
Generate Sample Data the Way You Want It Using AI, for Free  —  Finding good sample data is harder than it should be.If you've ever tried to test a dashboard, build a demo, or train a team on an analytics tool, you know the drill.
IDrive:
IDrive Autonomy: low-cost L2+ driver assistance with AI  —  L2+ driver assistance with a scalable AI stack built for automotive companies and laying the foundation for the autonomous future.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Cloudflare CEO: We're Ready To Block Millions of Websites From AI — With Matthew Prince
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Data Centers, Elon Musk, and the New Politics of Tech, with David Weigel
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.
Access:
Sam Altman on OpenAI's next model and the AI backlash
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Brian Singerman from GPx
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Training Data:
Making Cities Awesome: Peregrine's Nick Noone & Ben Rudolph
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.
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 3:10 PM ET, August 3, 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

Earlier Picks

Nick Statt / The Verge:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Dell Cameron / Gizmodo:
Ben Fox Rubin / CNET: