Techmeme
December 16, 2019, 7:35 PM

Top News

Casey Newton / The Verge:
Some contractors at Google's Austin content moderation facility describe being overworked and suffering severe mental health consequences after just six months  —  These moderators help keep Google and YouTube free of violent extremism — and now some of them have PTSD
Joe Flint / Wall Street Journal:
Netflix shares detailed overseas subscriber numbers for the first time in a filing, and says 90% of total subscriber growth came from outside the US since 2017  —  Streaming service is disclosing detailed subscriber information by region for operations outside of the U.S. for the first time
Karl Freund / Forbes:
Intel acquires Israel-based AI chip maker Habana Labs for $2B  —  Senior Analyst, Machine Learning and HPC  —  In a strategic move in its datacenter AI plans, Intel has announced that it will acquire Israeli chip startup Habana Labs for $2B.  Intel had reaffirmed its plans to deliver …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Instagram will preemptively flag potentially offensive captions, in addition to comments, aiming to nudge users to reconsider their words without censoring them  —  Earlier this year, Instagram launched a feature that would flag potentially offensive comments before they're posted.
Jia Tolentino / New Yorker:
How social media and apps like FaceTune led to a widespread pursuit of a generic “Instagram Face” look, enabled by non-invasive cosmetic medical procedures  —  How social media, FaceTune, and plastic surgery created a single, cyborgian look.  —  This past summer …
Corbin Davenport / Android Police:
Google halts Chrome 79 rollout on Android, which was ~50% complete, after the misconfigured update wiped user data from many apps using Android's native WebView  —  Chrome 79 started rolling out on desktop and mobile platforms a few days ago.  Unfortunately, a bug has cropped up that wipes data …

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference  —  Stop preparing for agents.  Start running them.  100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
Automate your scheduling workflows with Zoho Calendar  —  Your calendar can do more than schedule meetings Creating a calendar event takes only a few seconds.  But scheduling is rarely just about creating the event.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord's product chief | Peter Sellis
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
AI Doom Backlash Arrives, Anthropic & OpenAI IPO Outlook, Frontier Business Momentum Slows
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
AI Wants to Shop for You. What Could Go Wrong?
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Invest Like the Best:
Michael Moritz - Lessons From 40 Years of Investing and Writing
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Sources:
Baseten's CEO on why every company will want to own its AI
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Training Data:
Box's Aaron Levie: On Reinventing Yourself in the AI Age and Enterprise Diffusion
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:35 PM ET, December 16, 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

Earlier Picks

Tom Simonite / Wired:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg: