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September 18, 2019, 10:40 AM
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| Josh Constine / TechCrunch: |
Facebook debuts Portal TV, a TV accessory for video calling, streaming, AR gaming, and co-viewing Facebook Watch shows, shipping November 5 for $149 — Facebook wants to take over your television with a clip-on camera for video calling, AR gaming, and content co-watching.
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Facebook, VentureBeat, Thurrott, Digital Trends, Wall Street Journal, Telegraph, Bloomberg, CNET, WinBuzzer, Android Central, Financial Times, Mashable, and The Streamable
Tweets: @joshconstine, @rh_brown, @boztank, @tomwarren, @amahnke, @saysdana, and @ow. Thanks:@joshconstine
| Nick Statt / The Verge: |
Facebook unveils second-gen 10-inch Portal for $179, and 8-inch Portal Mini for $129, with WhatsApp call support, picture-in-picture viewing, and Prime Video — The $179 Portal and $129 Portal Mini are Facebook's latest hardware products — Facebook today announced three new products … | Bloomberg: |
Facebook confirms it was collecting Portal audio clips, some of which were transcribed by contractors, says 2nd-gen Portal devices will offer an opt-out option — - Company previously criticized for transcribing Messenger calls — New and old Portal devices will now offer an opt-out option
Tweets: @canterrain, @joshconstine, @the_dools, @business, @vladsavov, and @shiraovide
| Dieter Bohn / The Verge: |
Apple Watch Series 5 review: the best smartwatch with an always-on screen, a beautiful display, and new apps, but its battery life hasn't improved — There's basically no competition — The highest praise I can give the new Apple Watch Series 5 is simply this: it's an Apple Watch.
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Daring Fireball, TechCrunch, CNET, Macworld, Digital Trends, MacRumors, BuzzFeed News, USA Today, 9to5Mac, 9to5Mac, Wired, MacDailyNews, Cult of Mac, CNBC, iPhone Hacks, Pocket-lint, MobileSyrup, HODINKEE, MacStories, and Fast Company
Tweets: @itsnicolenguyen, @reckless, @backlon, and @tomwarren
| Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: |
Google will start surfacing key moments from videos in search results, highlighting them with direct links to timestamps provided by creators — Google today announced an update to how it handles videos in search results. Instead of just listing relevant videos on the search results page …
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The Keyword, Search Engine Land, The Verge, Tubefilter, Search Engine Roundtable, SlashGear, Social Media Today, Android Headlines, and Thurrott
Tweets: @kevin_indig and @googlewmc
| Nilay Patel / The Verge: |
iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max review: its camera system outperforms the Pixel 3 and Note10 in bright light and, with Night mode, usually beats Pixel 3 in low light — And the best camera you can get on a phone — The iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max did not arrive at the splashiest Apple event ever.
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MacRumors, PCMag, 9to5Mac, 9to5Mac, blog.halide.cam, Refinery29, YouTube, Wired, The Mac Observer, Apple, AppleInsider, O'Grady's PowerPage, iPhone Hacks, Cult of Mac, Softpedia News, Engadget, iPhone in Canada Blog, MacStories, iMore, Macworld, MSPoweruser, and Michael Tsai
Tweets: @llsethj, @joannastern, @tomwarren, @rsgnl, @daringfireball, @pschiller, @saschasegan, @viticci, @verge, @sdw, @sdw, @pierce, @reckless, @michaelbabich, @ow, @happicamp, @nicolasmagand, @reckless, and @reckless
| Chris Velazco / Engadget: |
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BuzzFeed News, TechCrunch, Mashable, iPhone Hacks, Cult of Mac, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, CNET, MSPoweruser, TechSpot, The Verge, MacRumors, Tom's Guide, TechRadar.com, and 9to5Mac
Tweets: @stroughtonsmith, @imagemechanics, @reckless, @stroughtonsmith, @rocco_botte, @mikeisaac, and @panzer
| Brian X. Chen / New York Times: |
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The Overspill. Tweets: @gruber, @reckless, @reckless, @rdrv3, @nytimesbusiness, @shawnking, @martinsfp, @nytimes, @ndlstrong, @benbajarin, @benbajarin, @dsilverman, @puiwingtam, @rdrv3, @rdrv3, @rdrv3, @alexhern, @shiraovide, and @bxchen
| Makena Kelly / The Verge: |
Facebook shares more on its upcoming Oversight Board for content decisions and how members are picked, says decisions will be binding even if Facebook disagrees — 'The board's decision will be binding, even if I or anyone at Facebook disagrees with it,' says Zuckerberg
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Facebook, The Register, BBC, The Atlantic, Rude Baguette, Digital Trends, and Business Insider
Tweets: @daveleebbc, @zephyrteachout, @niemanlab, @facebook, @facebook, and @kellymakena
| Katrina Brooker / Fast Company: |
As Google develops more powerful AI and proliferates it across the tech world, its real-world ethical ramifications become more consequential and murky — Google has more computing power, data, and talent to pursue artificial intelligence than any other company on Earth—and it's not slowing down.| Ryan Tracy / Wall Street Journal: |
Report: ~75 countries are using AI for surveillance and Huawei is providing surveillance tech in 50 countries, far more than its nearest competitor Hikvision — China leads world in facial-recognition and other new surveillance technologies, report says — WASHINGTON—China leads the world …
More:
Quartz, Carnegie Endowment …, and WRAL TechWire
Tweets: @hypervisible, @iwillleavenow, @nlw, @evanselinger, and @hoofnagle
| Tavi Gevinson / The Cut: |
Founder of the Rookie mag reflects on being an early influencer and the effect that Instagram had on her life and career as Instagram's aesthetic keeps evolving — My senior year of high school, I had three Instagram accounts: a public one, a private one for friends and internet friends, and a private one that was just for me.| Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC: |
Sources: after setbacks, Facebook partners with Luxottica to help make “Orion” AR smart glasses designed to replace smartphones, with 2023-2025 launch timeframe — KEY POINTS — Facebook has partnered with Luxottica to develop augmented-reality Ray-Ban glasses, sources familiar with the matter told CNBC.
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The Verge, Inquirer, Road to VR, Android Central, Firstpost Tech, UploadVR, Engadget, CNET, Business Insider, The Verge, Wareable, TechSpot, Patently Apple, Thurrott, Pocket-lint, PYMNTS.com, Digital Trends, Cult of Mac, VentureBeat, and 9to5Google
Tweets: @alexeheath, @stephennellis, @dariasolo, @david_ingram, @cnbc, @chrismessina, @mattnavarra, @alexqgb, and @thekenyeung. Thanks:@sal19
| Dieter Bohn / The Verge: |
Google Fi debuts a more traditional unlimited plan for $70/mo. for a single line, but “may optimize” video to 480p and will throttle data past 22GB per month — Including some limits on video streaming and 100GB of cloud storage — Google is announcing a new plan for its MVNO Fi cell service: Unlimited.| Will Oremus / OneZero: |
Studies that try to place a monetary value on consumer privacy have such varying results that researchers are beginning to conclude that it's the wrong approach — No one knows. And it might be time to stop asking. — For big tech platforms, this was the year when violating users' privacy got expensive.
Tweets: @privacyproject, @willoremus, @profcarroll, @willoremus, and @lemonsand
| Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
Descript, which offers tools for creating podcasts, raises $15M Series A from a16z and Redpoint, and acquires Lyrebird, which built audio transcription tools — The boom in popularity for podcasting has given a new voice to the world of spoken word content that had been largely left for dead with the decline of broadcast radio.| Dan Seifert / The Verge: |
Sonos Move review: loud and full sound that is great indoors or out, reliable wireless connectivity, but too big and heavy for travel, significant setup bugs — Sonos' first portable speaker is more comfortable at home than on the go — For the past week or so, I've been listening to music …
More:
TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, Gizmodo, Digital Trends, and Engadget
| Cherlynn Low / Engadget: |
HP debuts 13" Elitebook Dragonfly ultra-light business convertible with Intel Core vPro processor, 2TB storage, 16GB RAM, available Oct. 25, starting at $1,549 — HP is chasing superlatives again. Last year, the company launched the Spectre Folio — the first laptop made out of leather.
More:
The Verge, Gizmodo, Thurrott, ZDNet, Inquirer, VentureBeat, PCWorld, Ars Technica, and Windows Central
| Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Atlantic: |
Instagram's Close Friends feature proves controversial as both an influencer revenue stream and superficial gateway to intimacy — Gabi Abrao, better known as @sighswoon on Instagram, is “developing a language with the invisible.” Her page is half memes, half photos of her—eating fresh fruit …
Tweets: @jake_meador, @jennyearnest, @bluechoochoo, @guptasonali, @megan_nicolett, @adriennelaf, @amandamull, and @paulbisceglio
| Leo Kelion / BBC: |
London's Gatwick to become the UK's first airport to use facial recognition cameras on a permanent basis for ID checks for passenger boarding — Gatwick has become the UK's first airport to confirm it will use facial-recognition cameras on a permanent basis for ID checks before passengers board planes.| Mark Sullivan / Fast Company: |
A look at how Facebook's AI researchers are trying to build smart chatbots using unsupervised training of neural networks for natural language processing — Bots still can't converse like humans. But Facebook's AI researchers are making major inroads—with implications for the company's messaging apps and beyond.| Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: |
IBM unveils a 53-qubit quantum computer, scheduled to arrive next month, making it the largest universal quantum computer available for external use — IBM continues to push its quantum computing efforts forward and today announced that it will soon make a 53-qubit quantum computer available to clients of its IBM Q Network.
More:
CNET, Business Insider, ZDNet, TechRepublic, IBM, and Fortune
| Tim Peterson / Digiday: |
Sources: as Amazon gets ready to add linear TV channels to IMDb TV, partners push back against its plans to sell all ads with 55% revenue share to publishers — Amazon's free, ad-supported streaming video service IMDb TV plans to follow rival services by adding linear channels from TV networks …
Tweets: @tvrev
| Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: |
Facebook says it has updated its definition of “terrorist organizations” and changed its counterterrorism team's structure to curb white supremacist violence — In a blog post this afternoon, Facebook detailed the progress it's made in combatting terrorists, violent extremist groups …
More:
Facebook, Slashdot, Firstpost Tech, Social Media Today, SiliconANGLE, Quartz, and Gizmodo
Tweets: @megansquire0, @erinsaltman, @angelsdiaz_, @daveyalba, @eileenmcarey, @notthatbigian, and @moonshotcve
| Steve Dent / Engadget: |
HTC names former Orange exec Yves Maitre as its new CEO; HTC had $770M in revenue in 2018, the first time its annual revenue fell below $1B as a public company — HTC announced that it has appointed a former executive from telecom giant Orange, Yves Maitre, as its new CEO.
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PR Newswire, BBC, Nasdaq, Reuters, Fudzilla.com, Road to VR, Ausdroid, Android Headlines, and Pocketnow
Tweets: @htc, @benwood, and @urbanstrata
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