Techmeme
November 6, 2019, 3:10 PM

Top News

Pavel Alpeyev / Bloomberg:
SoftBank reports a loss of $6.5B, its first quarterly operating loss in 14 years, and a loss of $8.9B in the Vision Fund, including a charge of $4.6B for WeWork  —  SoftBank Group Corp. reported its first quarterly operating loss in 14 years after writing down the value of some of its marquee investments …
Ben Dooley / New York Times:
Following SoftBank's first loss in 14 years, CEO Masayoshi Son says his WeWork bet was a mistake, describing it as a “harsh lesson”, and vows to move forward  —  Masayoshi Son defended the Japanese company's investment, while admitting he misjudged the American firm's founder, Adam Neumann.
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Facebook says ~100 app developers might have had improper access to Groups member data even after the company announced restrictions to Groups API last year  —  At least 11 accessed data in the last two months  —  Facebook says that even after it locked down its Groups system last year …
Reuters:
Court filing demanding subpoenaed docs reveals California has been probing Facebook's disclosure of user data to Cambridge Analytica and others for 18 months  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - California is investigating Facebook Inc's disclosure of user data to Cambridge Analytica and other partners …
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Twitter announces Topics, which lets users follow 300+ subjects in their timeline, rolling out from Thursday; topics include sports and gaming but not politics  —  Starting with more than 300 subjects across sports, gaming, and entertainment  —  Recently, a friend told me he wanted to spend …
Reuters:
Court docs: Facebook execs discussed a plan in 2012 to cut off access to user data for developers seen as future rivals while pushing a user privacy narrative  —  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc (FB.O) began cutting off access to user data for app developers from 2012 to squash potential rivals …
Cara Lombardo / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Xerox is considering making a cash-and-stock offer for HP, which has a market value of ~$27B and is more than three times the size of Xerox  —  Bid for HP would be at a premium to company's market value of $27 billion  —  Xerox Holdings Corp. XRX 2.05% has set its sights on a takeover …
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Following the deaths of five people at a “party house”, Airbnb unveils new safety policies: verifying 100% of listings, a 24/7 “neighbor hotline”, and more  —  Airbnb CEO: We intend to verify 100% of listings  —  Airbnb is pushing out several new safety features …
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Amazon Echo Studio review: loud, spacious sound with support for a wide array of streaming services, but 3D music is more of a demo and the unit is large  —  The Studio is a great-sounding smart speaker that has some silly gimmicks you can thankfully ignore
Conor Dougherty / New York Times:
Apple, Facebook, and Google have pledged a combined $4.5B to end California's housing crisis, but the money will do little to solve systemic issues  —  Efforts by Apple, Facebook and Google to address the California housing crunch must contend with the forces that created it.
Bloomberg:
NTSB: the Uber self-driving test car that killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona last year wasn't programmed to recognize and react to jaywalkers  —  - U.S. safety board releases documents on fatal 2018 accident  — Pedestrian hit, killed by experimental self-driving Uber car
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Google debuts App Defense Alliance, a partnership with ESET, Lookout, Zimperium to catch Android malware early by streamlining and boosting data sharing efforts  —  The newly formed App Defense Alliance will try to solve a malware problem that has bedeviled the Play Store since inception.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Apple has updated its privacy pages for the fourth year in a row, now includes several technical whitepapers detailing some of its technologies  —  For the fourth year in a row, Apple has updated its privacy pages.  —  Every year the tech giant's refreshes the privacy portion of its website …
Dave Gershgorn / OneZero:
Joshua Brustein / Bloomberg:
Walmart and other companies are testing a monitoring device for workplace safety made by StrongArm in warehouses, raising concerns about workplace surveillance  —  Every morning when he goes to work in the freezer room of a warehouse in eastern Pennsylvania, Jack Westley throws on a hooded sweatshirt …
Mark Seal / Vanity Fair:
Inside the Big Bitcoin Heist, in which thieves stole 550 Bitcoin mining computers, worth $500K for hardware alone, from a cryptocurrency data center in Iceland  —  With its cheap geothermal energy and low crime rate, Iceland has become the world's leading miner of digital currency.
Nicholas Quah / Hot Pod News:
Members of the podcasting industry anonymously discuss common issues in the field: inexperienced leadership, poorly managed ad sales, accessibility, more  —  Over the past month, we've been running a call for opinions built around a fairly straightforward question: “What are you most frustrated by?”

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Meet Airtable ProductCentral  —  The unified solution for managing your entire product development process in the AI era.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
Zoho Forms for successful Black Friday sales  —  Black Friday is a retail frenzy that can significantly impact your bottom line.  To make the most of this shopping bonanza, you need a strategy that not only attracts customers …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Tue 11/05 - Apple: Maybe Smartglasses Are The Way To Go
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:10 PM ET, November 6, 2019.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Miguel Cordon / Tech in Asia:

Earlier Picks

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Washington Post:
Makena Kelly / The Verge: