Techmeme
August 15, 2019, 12:50 PM

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.
Dan Primack / Axios:
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 …
The Information:
Taso Du Val, the CEO of Toptal, a freelancing platform with ~$200M in revenues, has retained all of Toptal's stock, as it hasn't raised since a 2012 seed round  —  Toptal, a service that connects companies with freelance software engineers, is a Silicon Valley success story.
Tweets: @amir, @amir, @amir, @amir, @amir, @amir, @amir, and @amir
Joseph Cox / VICE:
Sean O'Kane / The Verge:
UPS takes a minority stake in self-driving truck startup TuSimple for an undisclosed sum, says it's been carrying UPS cargo between Phoenix and Tucson since May  —  The delivery giant has announced a minority stake in autonomous trucking startup TuSimple  —  UPS has had autonomous trucking …
More: Engadget and TechCrunch
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Incorta, which aims to optimize data warehousing projects for enterprises, raises $30M Series C led by Sorenson Capital, bringing its total raised to $75M  —  Incorta, a startup founded by former Oracle executives who want to change the way we process large amounts data, announced a $30 million Series C today led by Sorenson Capital.
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  —  This is breaking news.  Please check back for updates.  —  TRENDING NOW  —  Subscribe to CNBC PRO Licensing & Reprints Join …
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  —  It's been three years since the breakout success of Nintendo's tiny NES Classic, but the miniature console wars are finally heating up.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Berlin-based game studio Klang raises $23.3M led by Novator Partners to develop a MMO space colony simulation called Seed, bringing its total raised to $37.4M  —  Klang has raised $22.33 million in funding to develop a massively multiplayer online space colony simulation called Seed.
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
OnePlus CEO talks about a second 5G phone coming in Q4, international expansion, and plans to launch a TV set  —  OnePlus, China's upstart smartphone maker, is preparing a global rollout of its new 5G device this year, as it looks to expand in the US and win more customers from Huawei, Apple and Samsung.
New York Times:
As the 10+ day internet shutdown in Kashmir continues, pharmacists run out of drugs, people can't get cash, and online related businesses close  —  Pharmacists can't restock medicines; workers aren't being paid.  But the government still loves to block the internet for “peace and tranquillity.”

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:
App Spotlight: Google Sheets Magic Lookup for Zoho CRM  —  Our App Spotlight brings you hand-picked apps to enhance the power of your Zoho apps and tools.  Visit Zoho Marketplace to explore all apps, integrations …
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.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Special Report: Will AI Wipe Out Humanity? (And Who Profits)
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:
The Atlantic's CEO on AI, Billionaire Owners, and Moonlighting as a Creator
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.
Sources:
Mark Zuckerberg on Muse, Meta's biggest AI bet yet
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Lenny's Podcast:
How we built Grok Bot in a month | Roman Ugarte (SpaceXAI)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Invest Like the Best:
Walter Russell Mead - How America Keeps Winning
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Grit:
The AI Race Has a Leaderboard | Arena CEO Anastasios Angelopoulos
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:50 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.

More News

Laura Parker / GameSpot:
Emily Birnbaum / The Hill:
Jordan Novet / CNBC:

Earlier Picks

Jeran Wittenstein / Bloomberg:
Colin Lecher / The Verge:
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Jordan Davis / Facebook:
Mariella Moon / Engadget: