Techmeme: Trump delayed tariffs for some products like laptops and cellphones, sending Apple's stock up, but Airpods, Watches, and more were not included in the reprieve (Reuters)

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Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:

Sources: Facebook paid hundreds of contractors to transcribe user audio; FB says it's stopped the work, which affected users who wanted voice chats transcribed — - Social network says it paused human review of conversations — Apple, Amazon, Google have been scrutinized for similar work

More: Engadget, TechCrunch, iMore, MacRumors, The Next Web, Telegraph, Gizmodo, The Verge, CNET, Business Insider, 9to5Mac, Lifehacker, Mashable, MSPoweruser, CNBC, iDownloadBlog.com, The Mac Observer, iPhone in Canada Blog, and Seeking Alpha

Tweets: @sarahfrier, @random_walker, @dseetharaman, @thedcd, @heathercampbell, @jason_kint, @mikeisaac, @rmac18, @staska, @can, @lfdodds, @kurtwagner8, @kurtwagner8, and @shiraovide

Nitasha Tiku / Wired:

Interviews with 47 former and current employees about the past three years at Google reveal fear of the far right, activist awakening, weaponized leaks, more — ON A BRIGHT Monday in January 2017, at 2:30 in the afternoon, about a thousand Google employees—horrified, alarmed, and a little giddy …

More: Business Insider, Boing Boing, and MacDailyNews

Tweets: @nitashatiku, @nxthompson, @om, @wired, @reckless, @caitlin__kelly, @hypirlink, @joshsternberg, and @lizthegrey

Casey Newton / The Verge:

Snap announces Spectacles 3 with an updated design and a second HD camera to create depth perception, going on sale in November for $380 — They're $380 and go on sale in November — Snap today announced Spectacles 3, a redesigned version of its augmented reality sunglasses with a sleek …

Ashley Carman / The Verge:

Spotify for Podcasters comes out of beta, giving podcasters valuable listener data like age, gender, location, music taste, and episode listening duration — Spotify for Podcasters comes out of beta today — Spotify is going to give podcasters listener data they can't get anywhere else.

More: Spotify, Candid.Technology, TechCrunch, and iPhone in Canada Blog

Tweets: @ashleyrcarman, @marcoarment, @mims, and @marcoarment

Casey Newton / The Verge:

Twitter to soon let users follow interests, starting with sports, and create separate timelines for different topics; topics will be curated by Twitter using AI — A new way to explore interests on Twitter — Twitter will begin letting users follow interests, the company said today …

More: CNET. Tweets: @caseynewton, @caseynewton, @pt, @wongmjane, @chillmage, @living_marble, @geoffblaber, and @mattnavarra

The Information:

Sources: Spotify is discussing a plan with Apple to let iPhone users tell Siri to play songs, playlists, albums with voice commands, as anti-trust battle looms — An issue that has long vexed many iPhone users—the inability to play music from Spotify using Siri, Apple's voice assistant—may soon be a thing of the past.

More: The Verge, Thurrott, iMore, MacRumors, Fast Company, 9to5Mac, MSPoweruser, Cult of Mac, iPhone Hacks, iDownloadBlog.com, Appleosophy, iPhone in Canada Blog, Seeking Alpha, and MacDailyNews

Tweets: @ppatel, @bzamayo, and @bzamayo

Reuters:

Trump delayed tariffs for some products like laptops and cellphones, sending Apple's stock up, but Airpods, Watches, and more were not included in the reprieve — WASHINGTON and SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) AirPods, Apple Watch and HomePod, which have helped the company …

More: The Verge, CNET, TechSpot, iPhone Hacks, Cult of Mac, iPhone in Canada Blog, Seeking Alpha, and Reuters

Kaya Yurieff / CNN:

A look at Snapchat's community of about 100 official lens creators, who make custom AR lenses for people and brands, with Snap helping connect them to buyers — New York (CNN Business)Eighteen-year-old Ana Casciello couldn't find a filter she wanted for her Snapchat photo that matched her personal style.

Tweets: @andrewmendez19, @cnnbusiness, @basche42, and @kyurieff

Taylor Lorenz / The Atlantic:

Behind the rise of “twinfluencers” on social media, as content produced by twins continues to explode in popularity on YouTube and Instagram — You're not imagining it: Influencers really are multiplying. — There are the Dolan Twins, a pair of square-jawed 19-year-olds …

Tweets: @davezatz, @fordm, @venturetwins, @yappelbaum, and @katienotopoulos

Reuters:

23 job search websites in Europe allege anti-competitive behavior from Google in antitrust complaints to the European Union competition commissioner — BRUSSELS/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google's fast-growing tool for searching job listings has been a boon for employers and job boards starving …

More: Engadget, Mercury News, Android Headlines, The Verge, VentureBeat, The Next Web, Telegraph, and Inquirer

Hollywood Reporter:

Netflix is quickly expanding its global property portfolio, which includes 30+ offices and studios, as it ramps up its global content production — From sizable investments in studio facilities to high-end office spaces in some of the world's priciest neighborhoods, the company is quickly building …

Tweets: @thrmattbelloni

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

Cray, which is in the process of being bought by HPE, wins contract to make a $600M supercomputer for the US DoE, for 3D simulations, nuclear weapons research — Seattle-based supercomputer maker Cray has been tapped to develop a new $600 million system for the U.S. Department of Energy …

More: Tom's Hardware, SiliconANGLE, and TechCrunch. Thanks:@taylor_soper

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Nvidia says it has broken records for real-time conversational AI, training the industry-standard BERT model in 53 minutes and then inferring responses in ~2ms — Nvidia's GPU-powered platform for developing and running conversational AI that understands and responds to natural language requests …

More: NVIDIA Developer Blog, VentureBeat, SiliconANGLE, Neowin, NVIDIA ADLR, ZDNet, and MIT Technology Review

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Database from hacker community Cracked.to posted at rival site Raidforums, leaking users' IPs, email addresses, and DMs, many of which shared software exploits — Fortnite cracks, software exploits among the topics discussed in almost 357,000 PMs. — Hackers from Raidforums recently breached …

More: Have I Been Pwned …. Tweets: @thirdemily and @campuscodi

Janko Roettgers / Variety:

Oculus co-founder Nate Mitchell is leaving Facebook, seven years after launching the first Oculus Rift headset via Kickstarter — Oculus co-founder Nate Mitchell is leaving Facebook 7 years after launching the first Oculus Rift headset with a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign.

More: TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Business Insider, The Daily Dot, and Engadget

Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:

Facebook says it is opening up the closed beta of Spark AR on Instagram, letting any developer build and share AR filters on the platform — Not one to let Face App and Snapchat steal its spotlight, Facebook announced today that it's opening its closed beta of Spark AR on Instagram …

More: The Verge, Telegraph, and iPhone in Canada Blog

Angelica Krystle Donati / Forbes:

OpenSpace, which uses AI to create navigable, 360-degree images of building sites using photos from cameras attached to builders' hats, raises $14M Series A — I write about proptech and innovation in real estate and construction. — “> As a testament to the increasing significance of the subsector …

More: VentureBeat. Thanks:@alexanderhunter

Theodore Schleifer / Vox:

A look at Jeff Bezos' radical approach of giving nonprofits millions from his Day One Fund to provide shelter for homeless families without any restrictions — Jeff Bezos is making a name for himself in the world of charity. Nicole Craine/WireImage — Is that good? Is that bad?

More: Business Insider. Tweets: @susanmcp1, @amandamarcotte, @ablimpact, and @teddyschleifer

Liam Tung / ZDNet:

Chrome 77 and Firefox 70, out in the fall, will move extended validation info, which displays the site owner's name, from the address bar to behind the padlock — Extended Validation certificates for websites pronounced ‘really dead’, after policy change by Google and Mozilla.

More: Domain Name Wire and Techdows

Emily Birnbaum / The Hill:

Pentagon's internal watchdog says it is investigating misconduct allegations during the $10B JEDI cloud services contract acquisition process — The Pentagon's internal watchdog on Tuesday said that it is investigating potential ethics concerns around the $10 billion “war cloud” …

More: Seeking Alpha

Andrew Liptak / The Verge:

Researchers remotely install malware on a DSLR camera from Canon using the unauthenticated Picture Transfer Protocol, common in the industry; Canon issues patch — Canon has issued a security advisory and firmware patch for the vulnerability — Ransomware has become a major threat …

More: ZDNet, HackRead, Digital Photography Review, SlashGear, PetaPixel, Gizmodo, and The Next Web

Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE:

Pavilion Data Systems, a data center storage company, raises $25M Series C led by Taiwania Capital and RPS Ventures — Data center hardware maker Pavilion Data Systems Inc. is gearing up for expansion after closing on a $25 million round of funding that brings its total amount raised to $58 million.

More: FinSMEs, VentureBeat, Blocks and Files, and PE Hub Blog

Steven Sinofsky / Learning By Shipping:

How Steve Jobs conceived the “bicycle for the mind” metaphor for the personal computer, which largely drove Apple's philosophy for decades — “When we invented the personal computer, we created a new kind of bicycle...a new man-machine partnership...a new generation of entrepreneurs."

Tweets: @stevesi and @waltmossberg

Bloomberg:

Sources: Amazon is in late-stage talks to acquire up to 10% of Future Retail, India's No. 2 retailer by turnover, which is seeking $281M for the stake — - Indian supermarket firm seeks 20 billion rupees for shares — U.S. giant gears up for fight with Walmart, Reliance in India

More: PYMNTS.com, Business Insider, and Inc42 Media

Saritha Rai / Bloomberg:

Uniphore Software Systems, which aims to use AI in call centers for faster and more personalized customer support, raises $51M — An Indian startup that aims to use artificial intelligence to deliver faster and more personalized customer support for corporate clients is raising $51 million …

More: VentureBeat, PYMNTS.com, and FinSMEs

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