| 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.| Nick Statt / The Verge: |
| Bloomberg: |
| Dieter Bohn / The Verge: |
Apple Watch Series 5 review: it's a minor update and battery life hasn't improved, but an always-on, beautiful screen and new apps make it the best smartwatch — 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.| Kara Swisher / Vox: |
Apple's VP of communications Steve Dowling is leaving the company after five years in the role; Dowling joined the company 16 years ago — Steve Dowling, who has headed Apple's communications for the last five years, is leaving after 16 years at the company.| Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: |
GitHub buys code analysis tool Semmle, which helps identify security vulnerabilities and has Microsoft, Google among clients; Semmle raised $31M in VC funding — Microsoft's GitHub today announced that it has acquired Semmle, a code analysis tool that helps developers and security researchers … | Gabriel Debenedetti / New York Magazine: |
Inside the growing split between Silicon Valley and the Democratic Party, once allies, as leading presidential candidates express extreme worries about Big Tech — Three summers ago, a worker stood up at “Q&A,” Facebook's weekly all-hands, town-hall-style meeting, which is usually held … | Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times: |
Researchers: many smart TVs and streaming dongles from Roku, Samsung, Amazon and others are sending user data to companies like Netflix, Microsoft, and Facebook — The smart TVs in our homes are leaking sensitive user data to companies including Netflix, Google and Facebook even when some devices are idle … | Jay Peters / The Verge: |
Medium adds a “Save to Medium” bookmarking feature that lets users save articles to a reading list via sharing extensions on mobile and in Chrome — Most sites don't load in reading mode — Medium's “Save to Medium” bookmarking feature is now live, letting you save articles … | Jason D. Rowley / Crunchbase News: |
DCVC, which focuses on early-stage “deep” technology startups, closes a $725M fifth fund; the fourth DCVC fund, raised in 2016, topped out at $212M — Back in April, Crunchbase News spotted a filing by DCVC (formerly known as Data Collective) indicating that the Palo Alto-based … | Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: |
Documents found on an unprotected backup drive of a Nokia Networks employee shed light on Russia's secret network surveillance system, known as SORM — A data leak exposes SORM surveillance at Russia's top telco — In cities across Russia, large boxes in locked rooms are directly connected … | Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: |
Amazon will begin rolling out Alexa Political Contributions, which lets users donate $5-$200 to participating US presidential candidates, starting next month — The 2020 U.S. presidential election is just over a year away, and ahead of it, Amazon's rolling out a new feature … | Eliot Brown / Wall Street Journal: |
Profile of WeWork CEO Adam Neumann and his sometimes chaotic lifestyle, as sources detail worrying stories, like his wife firing multiple employees she just met — The skills that helped fuel We Co.'s breakneck growth are piling up as potential liabilities as the company prepares to go public| The Verge: |
Roundup of everything that is known about Google's Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, set to be announced on October 15, after weeks of non-stop leaks — Google's Pixel 3 might have been the most-leaked phone in history. Long before its unveiling, we knew practically everything about it from unboxing videos … | Wall Street Journal: |
Sources: AT&T is considering parting ways with its DirecTV unit, including spinning it off into a separate public company or combining assets with Dish — Telecom giant considers fate of DirecTV satellite unit — AT&T Inc. is exploring parting with its DirecTV satellite unit … | Joseph Cox / VICE: |
Repo men are scanning and uploading locations of cars they drive past into DRN, a surveillance database of 9B license plates accessible by private investigators — Repo men are passively scanning and uploading the locations of every car they drive by into DRN, a surveillance database … | Lauren Smiley / Wired: |
How data from the victim's Fitbit and a neighbor's Ring surveillance camera played a crucial role in the arrest of a 90-year-old suspect in a murder trial in CA — Karen Navarra was a quiet woman in her sixties who lived alone. She was found beaten to death. The neighbors didn't see anything.| 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.| Washington Post: |
Congress grills Google, Facebook, and Twitter again as lawmakers weigh creating a commission with subpoena power to study and monitor social media weaponization — House lawmakers are planning to unveil legislation to probe social media and online extremism| 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 … | Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Google begins rolling out new features for its Family Link parental control tool, including app-specific screen time and the ability to grant extra time — Google's parental control software, Family Link, is getting a noteworthy update today with the addition of new features that will allow parents … | Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Amazon says it is bringing Amazon PayCode, which allows customers to check out using cash at Western Union locations, to the US — Amazon is making it easier for customers to pay with cash for their online purchases. The retailer today announced the U.S. arrival of Amazon PayCode … | Lukas I. Alpert / Wall Street Journal: |
Facing mounting antitrust pressure, Google and Facebook have been cozying up to publishers, offering oft-requested fees and news-ranking changes — Facing mounting antitrust probes, tech platforms offer fees, news-ranking changes media outlets have pursued for years| Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
Descript, a toolmaker for podcasting, raises $15M Series A from a16z and Redpoint and acquires Lyrebird, which lets users create audio of their voices from text — 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.| Hayley Tsukayama / Electronic Frontier Foundation: |
| FinSMEs: |
Dental Intelligence, a Utah-based analytics and workflow automation platform for dental practices, raises $34M Series A — Dental Intelligence, Inc., a Pleasant Grove, UT-based analytics and workflow automation platform for dental practices, raised a $34m Series A growth round of funding.
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| Ryan Tracy / Wall Street Journal: |
| Nilay Patel / The Verge: |