Techmeme
November 5, 2019, 2:30 AM

Top News

Antonio Lucio / Facebook:
Facebook debuts logo with text that has context-dependent coloring, says it's to further distinguish the company from the Facebook app, which keeps its branding  —  Facebook started as a single app.  Now, 15 years later, we offer a suite of products that help people connect to their friends and family …
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
Data brokers like Sift and Kustomer, which share consumers' est. lifetime value with companies, now share it with customers on request due to new privacy laws  —  Little-known companies are amassing your data — like food orders and Airbnb messages — and selling the analysis to clients.
Wall Street Journal:
Dozens of companies in Vision Fund's portfolio have struggled lately; sources: Oyo founder invested $2B into his company by using a loan backed by Masayoshi Son  —  Other companies the huge tech investment fund has backed have struggled lately  —  SoftBank Group Corp. 's longtime strategy …
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft launches Office app on iOS and Android, combining Word, Excel, PowerPoint functionality into one app, expanding from initial debut with Galaxy Note10  —  Microsoft is looking for new ways to encourage people to use Office apps on their mobile phones by combining lightweight versions of the core apps into a single app.
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Researchers show that they can use lasers to send commands to smart speakers, tablets, and phones via Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant from far away  —  By pointing lasers tuned to a precise frequency at a smart assistant, researchers could force it to unlock cars, open garage doors, and more.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google Play Points, which rewards Android users with store credit or discounts for purchases like apps and movies, expands to the US from Japan and South Korea  —  Google Play is launching a new rewards program, Googe Play Points, that will allow you to earn points for everything …
Uber:
Uber reports Q3 revenue of $3.8B, up 30% YoY, gross bookings of $16.5B, up 29%, net loss of $1.2B; Uber Eats revenue up 64% to $645M; stock down 5%+ after hours  —  Revenue of $3.8 billion, with growth accelerating to 30% year-over-year, or 31% on a constant currency basis
Imran Hussain / Wccftech:
Frank Pallotta / CNN:
Netflix added a “skip politics” button to a segment of Seth Meyers' new comedy special “Lobby Baby”, following a request from the comedian  —  New York (CNN Business)Seth Meyers thinks some comedy fans may be burned out by DC politics, so he asked Netflix (NFLX) to help him do something about it.
Lauren Kaori Gurley / VICE:
1,100+ Googlers sign a letter asking Google to commit to eliminating its carbon footprint by 2030 and stop working with orgs harming climate change refugees  —  Google employees announced a campaign today to push the company to eliminate its massive carbon footprint by 2030.
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Microsoft Surface Pro X review: beautiful design and good screen but expensive, slow for the price, and has an unimpressive battery and app compatibility issues  —  Better than expected isn't enough  —  The Surface Pro X is the computer Microsoft has tried to make for at least seven years.
Yaël Eisenstat / Washington Post:
A former head of election integrity operations at Facebook says the company's business model and ad targeting tools make it hard for it to not harm democracy  —  The company can't avoid damaging democracy.  —  I joined Facebook in June 2018 as its “head of Global Elections Integrity Ops” …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google News for Android and iOS adds an option to show stories for up to two languages and regions  —  In recent years, Google has strived to make its products work better internationally.  Google News for Android and iOS now supports bilingual feeds to show stories for up to two “languages & regions of interest.”
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Microsoft debuts Project Cortex, a new Office 365 service for knowledge management that uses machine learning to classify documents into topics and collections  —  At its annual Ignite IT conference in Orlando, Florida, Microsoft today announced Project Cortex, its first new commercial product since the launch of Teams.
Natalie Gagliordi / ZDNet:
Cloud HR software company Workday to acquire Scout RFP, which makes cloud-based e-sourcing and procurement software, for $540M  —  Based in San Francisco, Scout RFP makes cloud-based e-sourcing and procurement software.  —  Workday announced Monday that it plans to acquire Scout RFP …

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