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September 18, 2019, 5:05 PM
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Mediagazer
memeorandum
WeSmirchTop News
| 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, CNET, USA Today, Digital Trends, SiliconANGLE, Daring Fireball, Wall Street Journal, Android Police, Adweek, Bloomberg, MacRumors, Quartz, Bloomberg, Bloomberg, TechSpot, Mashable, Telegraph, Android Central, iPhone in Canada Blog, WinBuzzer, Thurrott, Washington Post, The Streamable, Seeking Alpha, and iDownloadBlog.com
Tweets: @joshconstine, @boztank, @rh_brown, @tomwarren, @ow, @amahnke, @jason_kint, @gpollowitz, @saysdana, and @heatherkelly. 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 …
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The Verge, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, ZDNet, CNET, Financial Times, CNBC, and Thurrott. Tweets: @alexjkane
| Bloomberg: |
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CNET, CNN, Engadget, Business Insider, TechHive, and Mashable
Tweets: @business, @sarahfrier, @iansherr, @joshconstine, @shiraovide, @canterrain, @vladsavov, @silviakillings, and @the_dools
| 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, Director of Corporate Public Relations at Apple, speaks with Apple CEO Tim Cook during a break in Cook's testimony before Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington in May. |
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iMore, VentureBeat, Daring Fireball, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, Bloomberg, CNBC, iDownloadBlog.com, MACお宝 …, iPhone in Canada Blog, and Seeking Alpha
Tweets: @waltmossberg, @fxshaw, @pitts_man, @neilcybart, and @chris_ciaccia
| 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.
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CNBC, TechCrunch, Daring Fireball, Digital Trends, Wired, iMore, HODINKEE, BuzzFeed News, USA Today, CNET, MacDailyNews, TechSpot, Pocket-lint, 9to5Mac, MobileSyrup, 9to5Mac, Macworld, iDownloadBlog.com, MacStories, 9to5Mac, Cult of Mac, MacRumors, iPhone Hacks, and Fast Company
Tweets: @laurengoode, @backlon, @backlon, @tomwarren, @reckless, and @itsnicolenguyen
| 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 …
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Android Authority, reddit, 9to5Google, CNN, MSPoweruser, CNET, Engadget, and Engadget
Tweets: @davegershgorn and @jaypeters
| Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times: |
Researchers: many streaming dongles and TVs, including those made Amazon, Roku, Samsung, and LG, are sending user data to firms such as Netflix 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 … | 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 …
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Business Insider. Tweets: @teddyschleifer, @davenyczepir, @gdebenedetti, @gdebenedetti, @nymag, @pearkes, @gdebenedetti, @gdebenedetti, @jessefelder, and @teddyschleifer
| 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 …
Tweets: @jason_koebler, @lorenzofb, @alibreland, and @aclu
| 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
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Mashable, Business Insider, The Verge, Financial Times, Business Insider, CNBC, Boing Boing, Inc42 Media, KrASIA, Slate, Seeking Alpha, and Bloomberg
| 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.| 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 … | 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 …
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Gizmodo, UpGuard, Boing Boing, and UpGuard
Tweets: @zackwhittaker, @zackwhittaker, and @profcarroll
| 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 … | 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.
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IBM, Ars Technica, CNET, MIT Technology Review, SiliconANGLE, TechRepublic, Business Insider, Boing Boing, Fortune, and ZDNet. Tweets: @preskill
| 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 …
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3 min read and Medium Help Center
| 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.
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The Verge, Digital Trends, Descript, Fast Company, and Voicebot. Tweets: @chrismessina. Thanks:@ingridlunden
| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Amazon says it is bringing Amazon PayCode, which allows customers to checkout 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 …
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Amazon.com, Inc., ZDNet, Digital Commerce 360, Engadget, 9to5Toys, and Neowin
| 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 …
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VentureBeat, Engadget, and 9to5Google
| 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| 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| 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.
More:
Inside Out Security. Tweets: @lemonsand, @willoremus, @privacyproject, @willoremus, and @profcarroll
| 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, MacRumors, PCMag, 9to5Mac, iMore, ZDNet, Daring Fireball, Engadget, TechCrunch, CNET, BuzzFeed News, Apple, 9to5Mac, KnowTechie, blog.halide.cam, Cult of Mac, Mashable, Refinery29, CNBC, iPhone in Canada Blog, The Mac Observer, O'Grady's PowerPage, Redmond Pie, iDownloadBlog.com, MacDailyNews, YouTube, AppleInsider, The Overspill, Softpedia News, iPhone Hacks, and Macworld
Tweets: @rsgnl, @tomwarren, @pschiller, @saschasegan, @imagemechanics, @daringfireball, @joannastern, @viticci, @verge, @llsethj, @rocco_botte, @sdw, @sdw, @pierce, @reckless, @dsilverman, @panzer, @michaelbabich, @ow, @happicamp, @nicolasmagand, @alexhern, @bxchen, @reckless, and @reckless
| Sean Silcoff / Globe and Mail: |
Toronto-based TouchBistro, which offers a payments platform and more for restaurants globally, raises $158M Series E led by OMERS Growth Equity — Pension giant Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System has made its largest investment in a Canadian early-stage technology company … | Hayley Tsukayama / Electronic Frontier Foundation: |
Another push by tech giants to weaken the California Consumer Privacy Act, set to go into effect Jan. 1, has failed as it survives legislative sessions intact — The California Consumer Privacy Act will go into effect on January 1, 2020—having fended off a year of targeted efforts by technology giants who wanted to gut the bill.
More:
Lexology, Privacy Law Blog, Lexology, The National Law Review, and Government Technology News. Tweets: @eff
| Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: |
Researchers discover a weakness in the WS-Discovery protocol, found in over 800,000 IoT devices, that lets hackers amplify DDoS attacks — WSD is supposed to be confined to local networks. It's not, and researchers are concerned. — Hackers have found a new way to amplify the crippling effects …
More:
The Akamai Blog, ITworld.com, and Wired
| 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.Sponsor Posts
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