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December 17, 2019, 12:50 PM
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Mediagazer
memeorandum
WeSmirchTop News
| Bret Kinsella / Voicebot.ai: |
Report: Amazon had revenue of $1.4M from Alexa's in-skill purchases in the first ten months of 2019, which was well short of its target of $5.5M — The Information published (N.B. paywall) an article this morning saying that Amazon earned $1.4 million Alexa skill revenue through the first 10 months …
Source:
The Information. More:
Daring Fireball, Variety, and Seeking Alpha
Tweets: @priyasideas, @nickbastone, @mcwm, @mcclure111, @zerohedge, @nachkari, @mattmday, @mathewi, @nickwingfield, @mathewi, @kantrowitz, and @amir
| Colin Lecher / The Verge: |
Security engineer at Google says she was fired from the company last week after two years for sending internal browser pop-ups about labor rights — The latest termination at the company — Google has fired another employee following a showing of internal activism, marking the latest …
More:
NBC News, Kathryn Spiers, Bloomberg, Axios, Forbes, The Guardian, Engadget, TechCrunch, and VICE
Tweets: @aprilaser, @film_girl, @aaschapiro, @aprilaser, @ericajoy, @moonalice, and @reckless
| Wall Street Journal: |
Sources describe Peter Thiel's expanding influence at Facebook, where he advises Zuckerberg on White House dynamics and holding firm on the political ads policy — Billionaire investor thinks political-ad policy shouldn't change; some directors and executives disagree
More:
Seeking Alpha and CNBC
| Paul Ziobro / Wall Street Journal: |
Amazon blocks marketplace sellers from using FedEx Ground for Prime shipments indefinitely over FedEx's “delivery performance” — Amazon cites a decline in FedEx performance heading into the final holiday push — Amazon.com Inc. AMZN .47% is blocking its third-party sellers …
More:
The Digital Reader, New York Post, KnowTechie, CNBC, TheStreet, Reuters, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, SlashGear, TechSpot, Ars Technica, The Verge, CNN, Associated Press, CNET, PYMNTS.com, Bloomberg, CNBC, Adweek, GeekWire, Seeking Alpha, Business Insider, and Politico
Tweets: @harrymccracken, @alex, @halsinger, @avajoyewjz, @wsakaren, @matthewkeyslive, and @oliviabvoz
| LogMeIn, Inc.: |
LogMeIn to be acquired by affiliates of PE firm Francisco Partners and Elliott Management for $86.05/share in cash, valuing the company at ~$4.3B — All-Cash Transaction Valued at Approximately $4.3 Billion — LogMeIn, Inc. (NASDAQ: LOGM), a leading provider of cloud-based connectivity …
| Luke Jones / WinBuzzer: |
Microsoft opens up the Microsoft Edge Addons store for submissions ahead of Chromium Edge's launch; existing Chromium extensions to be migrated automatically — Developers can now submit to the Microsoft Edge Addons Store, with existing Chromium extensions migrated automatically.
More:
Windows Blog, ZDNet, Thurrott, AskWoody, Ausdroid, Redmond, gHacks Technology News, Windows Central, MSPoweruser, Neowin, and OnMSFT.com
Tweets: @qmatteoq and @msedgedev
| Danny Palmer / ZDNet: |
WhatsApp fixes bug that allowed a rogue group member to render the app unusable, forcing a reinstall and loss of group chat content — Researchers detail security flaw that allowed hackers to crash WhatsApp and permanently delete contents of group chats - and urge users to update the app to protect against attacks.| Josh Constine / TechCrunch: |
Instagram expands its fact checking efforts by hiding false content behind warnings, except for politicians, and removing it from Explore and hashtag pages — Instagram is giving politicians the same free reign to spread misinformation as its parent company Facebook.
More:
Instagram, Washington Post, Engadget, Quartz, iPhone in Canada Blog, Geek.com, Inc42 Media, The Mac Observer, Adweek, Mashable, 9to5Mac, The Daily Dot, and Social Media Today
Tweets: @blakersdozen, @b52malmet, @joshconstine, @joshconstine, and @jasonabbruzzese
| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
More:
About Facebook, iMore, International Business Times, Business Insider, Geek.com, Thurrott, Social Media Today, SiliconANGLE, Adweek, Pocket-lint, SlashGear, Firstpost Tech, Wccftech, iPhone Hacks, Cult of Mac, The Next Web, CNET, Neowin, Digital Trends, Gizmodo, infosecurity-magazine.com, BBC, and WebProNews
Tweets: @adibhidayat, @enellaxxx, and @mosseri
| Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch: |
Skyryse demos its Skyryse Flight Stack tech, enabling existing helicopters to be flown autonomously, says it's raised $38M, with $13M in new funding — Skyryse is a three-year old transportation startup that is approaching the future of aviation from a different angle when compared to most.| Jon Porter / The Verge: |
Lime launches a weekly subscription service for frequent riders that waives the unlock fee on renting the company's e-scooters and bicycles — LimePass waves the unlock fee on your rentals — Lime just announced LimePass, a weekly subscription service that waves the unlock fee on renting … | Adithya Venkatraman / App Annie: |
Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram, all belonging to Facebook, were the most downloaded apps worldwide of this decade — Mobile Has Been at the Heart of Major Changes in Consumer Behaviour This Decade Throughout the 2010s we have seen our world transform.
More:
iMore, TechSpot, iPhone Hacks, 9to5Mac, Gamasutra, VentureBeat, Pocket Gamer.biz, and Mashable
Tweets: @marcsettle, @riptari, and @tyadkisson
| iFixit News: |
Mac Pro needs little to no tooling for basic fixes and upgrades, scores a 9/10 on repairability; components are modular but some are proprietary, like SSD cards — Teardown of the reinvented 2019 Mac Pro, which returns to a properly repairable design that happens to not grate cheese very well.
More:
The Verge, The Register, Engadget, CNET, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, MSPoweruser, SlashGear, MacDailyNews, iDownloadBlog.com, and iPhone Hacks. Tweets: @ifixit
| The Information: |
Sources: early last year, Alphabet and Google's leadership set a timeline for its cloud group to best its rivals by 2023, and considered leaving the market — Google's cloud unit, which sells computing services to big companies, is under pressure from top management to pass Microsoft or Amazon …
More:
CNBC and Seeking Alpha
Tweets: @kmclaughlinsf, @jny, @petebray, @amir, @mhbergen, @ryan, @jessicalessin, and @nickwingfield
| Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: |
Survey: 50% of companies integrating AI into their workflows spend between 8 and 90 days deploying a single machine learning model, with 18% taking even longer — Incorporating AI and machine learning technologies into everyday workflows isn't as easy as the testimonials would have you believe.
Tweets: @jeffnolan and @ozaiane
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