Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise Site News
Techmeme
August 15, 2019, 8:15 PM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter

Top News

The Keyword:
Google Assistant now lets users create reminders that can be assigned to friends or family, including scheduled time-based or location-based reminders  —  If you're a fellow parent, you probably spend a lot of time coordinating with your partner through on-the-fly conversations, text messages or phone calls.
Elizabeth Lopatto / The Verge:
A close reading of the S-1 of the soap opera that is The We Company, a “tech company” whose mission “is to elevate the world's consciousness”  —  On August 14th, The We Company (the company formerly known as WeWork) filed its mandatory S-1 paperwork to go public, and it's worth reading in full.
Dan Primack / Axios:
WeWork files to raise $1B in an IPO, reports a $904M net loss on around $1.5B in revenue for first half of 2019
Will Oremus / OneZero:
YouTube's guidelines may not discriminate against LGBTQ creators, but their vagueness and ad-friendly conservatism leads to discriminatory enforcement  —  A new lawsuit highlights a basic injustice in YouTube's “ad-friendly” policies  —  ouTube wants to be a platform for self-expression for all kinds of people.
Karl Bode / VICE:
Google says data from its new “Password Checkup” Chrome extension shows that 1.5% of all website logins use credentials that have been compromised  —  New ‘Password Checkup’ Chrome extension found 1.5 percent of all website logins use compromised credentials, a figure that's higher for porn websites.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple sues mobile device virtualization company Corellium, accusing it of copyright infringement for illegally replicating iOS and iPhone and iPad apps  —  Apple today filed a lawsuit against Corellium, a mobile device virtualization company that supports iOS.
Shirin Ghaffary / Vox:
Study: leading AI models to detect hate speech are 1.5x more likely to flag tweets by African Americans as offensive or hateful, partly due to social context  —  A new study shows that leading AI models are 1.5 times more likely to flag tweets written by African Americans as “offensive” compared to other tweets.
The Information:
Investors and employees of Toptal, a freelancing platform with ~$200M revenue and originally funded by $1.5M in convertible notes, have ended up with no equity  —  Toptal, a service that connects companies with freelance software engineers, is a Silicon Valley success story.
Eugene Kim / CNBC:
Amazon launches a new donations program, called FBA Donations, for third-party sellers to dispose of unsold products stored in its warehouses in the US and UK  —  KEY POINTS  — Amazon is launching a new donations program, called FBA Donations, for third-party sellers that store …
April Glaser / Slate:
Tech companies can do a lot more to protect the identities of people speaking in recordings used to train AI, like shifting the voice or gender of the speaker  —  It turns out that Siri, Alexa, and whatever it is you call Facebook Messenger have been a little loose-lipped with your conversations.
Ronald Eikenberg / heise online:
Data leak in Kaspersky's antivirus software for Windows has allowed third parties to potentially track users by injecting unique IDs into web pages since 2015  —  Kaspersky promises security and data protection.  However, a data leak allowed third parties to spy on users while they were surfing the web.
Cristina Tardáguila / Poynter:
Facebook is expanding its third-party fact checking program to Instagram, starting with US, and will downplay posts deemed fake on its Explore and Hashtag pages  —  Starting today, Instagram users can report false content and expect certified fact-checkers to analyze its veracity.
Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:
After a 40% share price drop in 2019, Baidu has been replaced on the top 5 list of China's most valuable internet companies by NetEase  —  - Tencent's closest gaming rival NetEase is now worth more  — Search giant Baidu faces threat from newer tech star ByteDance
Aric Toler / bellingcat:
A deep dive into Amazon FC Ambassadors program finds 53 Ambassador accounts in seven countries, some of which are using fake identities and recycling accounts  —  On August 14, a Twitter thread that included a small army of “Amazon FC Ambassadors” went viral, bringing to light Amazon's year-long social media brand ambassador program.
David Frankel / Founder Collective:
Overview of startup exits outside Silicon Valley from the past ten years, not including Asian companies: Sweden edges out UK, Boston remains big, more  —  There's never been a better time to build a company outside the Bay Area  —  The Bay Area has been the best place to build a startup for the last two decades.

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:
Fast, affordable law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!
F5:
Accelerate AI Adoption at F5's AI Virtual Summit  —  Learn how to architect, secure, and scale AI for production with real-world insights from industry leaders on June 23.  Register now to save your spot.
Zoho:
Zoho RPA named a Leader in the 2026 RPA Technology Value Matrix by Nucleus Research  —  Zoho RPA has been named a Leader in the 2026 RPA Technology Value Matrix, published by Nucleus Research …
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.
Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
 SpaceX's IPO Triumph, Anthropic's Fable Fumble, OpenAI's Price War
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.
Access:
 A top iPhone app developer reacts to Apple's new Siri
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Hard Fork:
 'Hard Fork' Live, Part 1: Satya Nadella and Cindy Cohn
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.
The Upstarts Podcast:
 TBC's Alex Ksendzovsky: The Neurosurgeon Using Brain Cells To Build Better AI
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
BG2 Pod:
 The SpaceX IPO, Fable 5, AI Capex Update & Market Check w/ Gavin Baker, Andrew Fox & Clark Tang
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
 AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI
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.
Add your podcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:15 PM ET, August 15, 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.

From Mediagazer

Gary Baum / The Hollywood Reporter:
A look at the first “case” brought before Objection, which aims to use AI to evaluate news stories, and a Q&A with Objection's founder; the site is now dark

Daniel Arkin / NBC News:
Gene Shalit, a longtime film critic for NBC's Today who was with the show from 1970 until his retirement in 2010, dies at 100

Aidan Ryan / The Boston Globe:
A look at an AI-reliant news site for 19 towns south of Boston, which uses public meeting transcripts and LLMs to produce stories and has 350 paid subscribers

More News

Laura Parker / GameSpot:
Profile of Microsoft's Executive VP of Gaming Phil Spencer, who has steadfastly advocated for cross-platform play since taking over as head of Xbox in 2014
Andrew Webster / The Verge:
Sega's Genesis Mini, launching September 19 for $79.99, is 55% smaller than the original Genesis, comes with two USB controllers, and has 42 built-in games

Earlier Picks

CNBC:
VMware says it is in talks to acquire Pivotal Software for $15 per share in cash, an 80% premium on Pivotal's $8.30 closing price on Wednesday
Colin Lecher / The Verge:
About 200 Google employees sign a petition, saying they “refuse to be complicit” in potential cloud computing work for the US Customs & Border Protection agency
Jordan Davis / Facebook:
Facebook simplifies Groups' privacy settings, to public and private; “secret” Groups are now private and hidden, and “closed” Groups are now private and visible
Mariella Moon / Engadget:
AT&T and T-Mobile have started rolling out cross-network call authentication services to protect against spam and spoofed robocalls
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter