Techmeme
November 7, 2019, 6:20 PM

Top News

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Some users across all major US carriers received text messages overnight that appear to have been sent around Valentine's Day, causing distress in some cases  —  It's happening to people across all major US carriers  —  Something strange is happening with text messages in the US right now.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund invested $400M in Travis Kalanick's CloudKitchens in January, valuing the “ghost kitchen” operator at about $5B  —  The sovereign-wealth fund—also an early investor in Uber—poured $400 million into CloudKitchens in January
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
CNBC:
Bob Iger says Disney+ will be on Amazon's Fire TV when it launches on November 12  —  - Analysts will be looking to see if Disney gives any color on expected subscriber numbers for Disney+.  —  Robert Iger, Chairman and CEO at The Walt Disney Company speaks in Laguna Beach, California, October 22, 2019.
James Vincent / The Verge:
OpenAI releases the full version of GPT-2 text generation AI, which it previously said was too dangerous to share, after finding “no strong evidence of misuse”  —  The lab say it's seen ‘no strong evidence of misuse so far’  —  The research lab OpenAI has released the full version …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Microsoft starts shipping its $3,500 HoloLens 2 to preorder customers in the US, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and the UK  —  New gesture controls and a bigger field of view  —  Microsoft's HoloLens 2 mixed reality headset is shipping today after being announced earlier this year.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple's weather app stopped showing air quality index data for Chinese cities, source says due to Weather Channel changing how it collects that data in China  —  When it comes to many of Apple Inc.'s latest services, iPhone users in China are missing out.  Podcast choices are paltry.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple releases iOS and iPadOS 13.2.2 with a fix for a bug that terminated apps in the background far more aggressively  —  Apple today released iOS and iPadOS 13.2.2, updates to the iOS 13.2 software that was released on October 28.  —  The iOS and ‌‌iPadOS‌‌ 13.2.2 updates …
VICE:
Sources: the CEO and CSO of Alphabet's Chronicle, which is to be merged with Google, have left, with the CTO leaving soon as the cybersecurity startup implodes  —  Chronicle, Google's moonshot cybersecurity startup that was supposed to completely change the industry, is imploding.
Roger Cheng / CNET:
If its Sprint merger goes through, T-Mobile says it will offer free 5G to first responders for a decade and free broadband to 10M households with children  —  It's been more than a year and a half since T-Mobile and Sprint announced their $26.5 billion merger in a bid to revamp the US wireless industry.
Emily Glazer / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Google has been holding internal meetings on changing its political ad policy, and plans to share more information with employees soon  —  Discussions come after Twitter said it would bar most political ads amid spread of misinformation  —  Alphabet Inc. GOOG -.02% 's Google …
Reuters:
Bloomberg:
Google contractors recall the often absurd predicament of representing Google, like escorting job candidates around campus, while not working for the company  —  Kevin Kiprovski had a lofty title, “Expeditions Associate,” and a fun job — he got to demo Google virtual reality gear to young students.
Taylor Lorenz / New York Times:
An investigation into I'm Shmacked, which exploited thousands of students by inducing them to provide viral videos of college parties to earn Instagram fame  —  The chief executive of I'm Shmacked promises students Instagram fame, then silences them with threats.
Nico Grant / Bloomberg:
Photoshop for iPad has met with a lackluster reception and a review rating of 2.3 out of 5 stars, prompting Adobe exec to defend this first version  —  Adobe Inc. debuted its most important mobile application ever this week when it finally released Photoshop for Apple Inc.'s iPad.
Kris Holt / Engadget:
Disney says Disney+ will launch in UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain on March 31  —  Disney+ will officially debut in the US, Canada and the Netherlands November 12th, and Australia and New Zealand a week later.  The rest of the world will need to wait a little longer to stream the likes of Avengers …
The Correspondent:
Skeptics say the effectiveness of online advertising is overhyped since ad marketers optimize ever more for people who would have bought anyway  —  Mel Karmazin, the president of Viacom, one of the largest media conglomerates in the world, walked into the Google offices in Mountain View, California.
Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed News:
Twitter says it will begin a series of experiments within two weeks that tweak functions like the retweet and reply to promote healthier conversations  —  Twitter knows we treat each other terribly on Twitter.  We dunk, ridiculing friends and strangers via quote-tweets.  We ratio, piling on replies to bad tweets.
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / ZDNet:
AMD unveils two new Ryzen Threadripper CPUs in 24-core and 32-core versions, built using its 7nm “Zen 2” architecture, available Nov. 19 for $1,399 and $1,999  —  Need CPU power?  AMD has you covered with new 24-core and 32-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google says it is open sourcing the phone-based VR software of Cardboard, less than a month after the company discontinued its Daydream View VR headset  —  Maybe the last nail in the coffin for phone-based VR  —  In October, Google officially discontinued its Daydream View VR headset …

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Earlier Picks

Johana Bhuiyan / Los Angeles Times:
Alex Krivit / The Cloudflare Blog:
Washington Post:
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Christina Farr / CNBC: