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August 15, 2019, 3:40 PM
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| 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.
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The Verge, Android Police, MacRumors, The Next Web, CNET, ZDNet, TechCrunch, CNBC, Engadget, SlashGear, Android Beat, PCWorld, XDA Developers, Thurrott, KnowTechie, VentureBeat, MSPoweruser, Neowin, Droid Life, Geek.com, Mashable, and Fast Company
| 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.
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Bloomberg, Crunchbase News, PYMNTS.com, The Overspill, Business Insider, and WTVR-TV
Tweets: @tariqkrim, @adamsinger, @eveb, @backlon, and @mathewi
| Dan Primack / Axios: |
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Tweets: @ellenhuet, @shiraovide, @ellenhuet, @ranimolla, @markmilian, @fattailcapital, @triketora, @ellenhuet, @davepell, @ajzaleski, @shiraovide, @bopinion, @mattyglesias, @cnbc, @matthewstoller, @silviakillings, @ezraklein, @ellenhuet, @jodiecongirl, @shiraovide, @caseynewton, @reckless, @mikeisaac, @pkafka, @kifleswing, @rstephens, @djtgallagher, @seldo, @ellenhuet, @ellenhuet, @annawiener, @ellenhuet, @ericnewcomer, @ellenhuet, @ellenhuet, @ellenhuet, @zerohedge, @zerohedge, @kateclarktweets, @tculpan, and @anthony
| Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE: |
In a memo sent internally before he left the company, a Google employee wrote about “the burden of being black at Google”, noting he regularly faced racism — “Over the last 5 years I've heard co-workers spew hateful words about immigrants, boast unabashedly about gentrifying neighborhoods … | 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.
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Bloomberg, Forbes, Naked Security, Engadget, Boing Boing, CNBC, TechCrunch, and VICE
Tweets: @aprilaser, @jason_koebler, @josephfcox, @aprilaser, and @slate
| 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 …
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Day One, Digital Trends, GeekWire, The Verge, Geek.com, TechCrunch, TechSpot, PYMNTS.com, SlashGear, Business Insider, Engadget, and bit-tech.net
| Jeremy Horwitz / VentureBeat: |
Canalys: North American wearables market hit $2B in Q2, 2019, as market leader Apple grew 32% YoY with 2.9M shipments, Fitbit grew 18%, and Samsung grew 121% — In North America, the market for wearables — particularly wearable bands — is still continuing to grow, and Apple's popular Apple …
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Canalys, 9to5Google, iMore, TechCrunch, AppleInsider, Android Police, and Droid Life
| 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.| Yogita Khatri / The Block: |
Ripple's investment subsidiary Xpring grants 1B XRP, around $262M, to Coil, a micropayments platform for content creators, to drive adoption of the token — Ripple's investment subsidiary Xpring has granted 1 billion XRP to Coil, a micropayments platform for content creators … | 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.
More:
Google Online Security Blog and MacDailyNews
Tweets: @karlbode, @brooklyndan, @deciphersec, and @ericgeller
| 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 …
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UPS Pressroom, Gizmodo, Engadget, Neowin, and TechCrunch
| Chip Cutter / Wall Street Journal: |
Flashy Gen Z résumés, containing photos and bitmoji, are colliding with employer efforts to reduce hiring bias with systems that remove such embellishments — Employers see surge in Gen Z CVs containing photos and illustrations; 'there's a freaking bitmoji'
Tweets: @taylorlorenz, @antoniabmassa, @db, @glassdoor, and @mattnavarra
| 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.| Ronald Eikenberg / heise online: |
A data leak in Kaspersky's antivirus software has allowed third parties to potentially spy on 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.| 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.
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FinSMEs and PE Hub Blog
| Molly Price / CNET: |
How St. Louis University is trying to help new students acclimate to campus life by putting an Echo Dot in every dorm room with a campus-specific Alexa skill — Students at St. Louis University are headed back to school with Alexa in their dorm rooms to help with everything from weather to campus bus schedules.| 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.
Tweets: @bellingcat, @bellingcat, and @bellingcat
| Casey Newton / The Interface: |
Twitter's followable topics may open big new audiences for the company, as well as polarize them; Twitter still thinks its “trending” section can be fixed — On Wednesday, Twitter invited reporters to its headquarters in San Francisco for an update on improvements to the product.
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Wired, BuzzFeed News, TechCrunch, Silicon Republic, Media Matters for America, and The Verge
Tweets: @caseynewton, @andrewmendez19, @basche42, and @cnnbusiness
| Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch: |
Cloudflare files for an IPO, citing sites like 8chan as one risk factor, says it had revenues of $192.7M in 2018, up 43% YoY, and a net loss of $87.2M — The company (which made its debut on TechCrunch's Battlefield stage) has put a placeholder value of the offering at $100 million …
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TechCrunch, Business Insider, The Verge, TheStreet, Bloomberg, and Crunchbase News
| 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.
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FinSMEs, Silicon Republic, and PE Hub Blog
| 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.| 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.
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CNET, Android Authority, Windows Central, Kotaku, Polygon, Forbes, IGN, TechSpot, 9to5Toys, ExtremeTech, and VentureBeat
Tweets: @danackerman, @atomkirk, and @db
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