Techmeme
September 2, 2019, 6:20 PM

Top News

Guilherme Rambo / 9to5Mac:
Sources reveal sleep tracking features coming to Apple Watch: sleep quality monitoring, option to auto-disable alarms if user wakes up before they sound, more  —  There's been a lot of speculation about Apple Watch sleep tracking, especially after Apple acquired Beddit …
Jake Newby / RADII:
Viral Chinese deepfake app Zao, which lets users put themselves in pre-selected scenes from popular movies and soap operas, sparks privacy concerns  —  The launch of deepfake-style face swap app ZAO has seen it leap up the download charts in China, but it's also raising a host of privacy concerns
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook confirms it is considering testing removal of Like counts  —  Facebook could soon start hiding the Like counter on News Feed posts to protect users' from envy and dissuade them from self-censorship.  Instagram is already testing this in 7 countries including Canada and Brazil …
Seema Jayachandran / New York Times:
A study of the fastest-growing startups established from 2007 to 2014 finds middle age is a typical starting point for the founders of successful tech companies  —  It took an entrepreneur to reimagine the mundane home thermostat as an object of beauty — and then to make a fortune based on that vision.
Brian Barrett / Wired:
A grand jury indicts eight people for allegedly running two of the largest US illegal streaming sites, Jetflicks and iStreamItAll, that touted 37,000+ paid subs  —  In a sweeping indictment, the feds came down hard on Jetflicks and iStreamItAll, which allegedly crossed a very important line.
Mark Sullivan / Fast Company:
Inside Amazon's plans to integrate Alexa deep into in-car systems, as it prepares to announce the second version of the Alexa Auto SDK this week  —  Competing with Apple and Google when you don't have your own smartphone platform is tough.  But Amazon has a plan—and lots of patience.
Gregor Hohpe / Martin Fowler:
A closer look at software architecture lock-in, which many developers consider their archenemy, in its many forms like vendor lock-in, product lock-in, and more  —  A significant share of architectural energy is spent on reducing or avoiding lock-in.  That's a rather noble objective …

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Earlier Picks

Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
Bloomberg: