Techmeme
December 22, 2019, 3:20 PM

Top News

The Verge:
The 84 biggest flops, fails, and dead dreams of the 2010s, from the Fire phone and Google Glass to the undoing of net neutrality in the US  —  A decade of failures  —  The world never changes quite the way you expect.  But at The Verge, we've had a front-row seat while technology …
Reuters:
US Navy bans TikTok from government-issued mobile devices citing a cybersecurity threat, will block devices with the app from the Navy Marine Corps Intranet  —  (Reuters) - Earlier this week the United States Navy banned the social media app TikTok from government-issued mobile devices …
Wired:
San Francisco's municipal surveillance law, which banned city agencies from using facial recognition in May, amended to allow for Face ID on city-issued iPhones  —  San Francisco quietly amends its municipal surveillance law to allow for Apple's Face ID, though the ban on facial recognition still applies.
Davey Alba / New York Times:
Facebook and Twitter shut down a network of fake accounts using AI-generated faces to “masquerade” as Americans; Facebook links the network to Epoch Media Group  —  Researchers said the profiles, linked to the Epoch Media Group, used photos generated by artificial intelligence in a preview of an …
Matt Brown / Jalopnik:
California DMV to start approving permits for self-driving delivery vehicles, with and without backup drivers, from Jan. 17, both for testing and commercial use  —  Are you ready to be stuck in traffic behind armies of autonomous delivery robots?  No?  Well good news: if you live in California …
New York Times:
Text messages show how the head of DOJ antitrust division Makan Delrahim steered the T-Mobile-Sprint deal and played a crucial role in getting Dish involved  —  Text messages indicate that Makan Delrahim, the head of the Justice Department's antitrust division, worked behind the scenes to help the companies pull off a deal.
The Verge:
Sarah Nassauer / Wall Street Journal:
Elias Groll / Wired:
Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, head of the Joint AI Center for the DOD, talks integrating AI into its weapons systems, building predictive maintenance tools, and more  —  Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan doesn't want killer robots—but he does want artificial intelligence to occupy a central role in warfighting.
Lisa Kaplan / Lawfare:
TheSoul, a Russian web publisher with YouTube channels like 5-Minute Crafts, has the most reach among entertainment groups on YouTube, after Disney, WarnerMedia  —  What the heck is TheSoul Publishing?  I'm still honestly not sure.  —  Here's what I do know: Measured in terms of views and subscribers …

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 3:20 PM ET, December 22, 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

Karen Weise / New York Times: