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Thu. 11/07 - Alleged Spies Inside Twitter Nov 07, 2019

Show notes

Twitter employees charged with spying for Saudi Arabia, those weird text messages a whole bunch of people received overnight, the most powerful desktop CPUs in the world, Ghost Locomotion wants to turn existing cars into autonomous vehicles, Wrench will repair your car on demand, and what smart speaker seems to be unhackable?

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Wed. 11/06 - Xerox Makes Some News! Nov 06, 2019

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Twitter announces Topics, Xerox might take a run at HP, Uber’s getting into the ads business, Ford’s electric Mustang makes Tech Crunch angry, and the best blockchain startup idea I’ve heard of in a long time.

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Twitter is rolling out Topics, a way to follow subjects automatically in the timeline (The Verge)
Xerox Considers Takeover Offer for HP (WSJ)
California Says Facebook Failed to Comply With Subpoenas (NYTimes)
California asks for court order forcing Facebook to hand over Cambridge Analytica documents (The Verge)
Self-Driving Uber in Crash Wasn’t Designed to See Jaywalkers (Bloomberg)
Uber is entering the ads business (TechCrunch)
Neural Magic raises $15 million to boost AI inferencing speed on off-the-shelf processors (VentureBeat)
How Arweave's Permaweb cheaply hosts sites & apps forever (TechCrunch)
Ford built an electric Mustand with a manual transmission. And we're mad. (TechCrunch)

Tue. 11/05 - Is All Well With Softbank? Nov 05, 2019

Show notes

How are things in Masa Son’s world post-WeWork? How long until Uber will be profitable? How is the new Surface Pro X to use? Why is iOS aggressively quitting background apps? And why data scoring companies are maybe worse than credit score companies.

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SoftBank imposes new standards to rein in start-up founders (Financial Times)
WeWork Isn’t the Only Stumble for SoftBank’s Vision Fund (WSJ)
Uber Books Another Quarterly Loss as Revenue Climbs (WSJ)
MICROSOFT SURFACE PRO X REVIEW: HEARTBREAKER (The Verge)
Xiaomi unveils its 108-megapixel smartphone (Engadget)
Actively exploited bug in fully updated Firefox is sending users into a tizzy (ArsTechnica)
IOS 13.2 IS OVERZEALOUSLY KILLING APPS IN THE BACKGROUND (Daring Fireball)
I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score. Now You Can Get Yours, Too. (NYTimes)

Mon. 11/04 - Everyone Got a New Logo Nov 04, 2019

Show notes

Your smart speakers aren’t secure in a wild new way, crazy product announcement day from Microsoft and Adobe, crazy new logo design day from everyone but especially Facebook, and Wikipedia makes a big change to citations.

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Hackers Can Use Lasers to ‘Speak’ to Your Amazon Echo or Google Home (Wired)
Microsoft’s new Office app for iOS and Android combines Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (The Verge)
Microsoft's Chromium Edge browser arrives January 15th (Engadget)
Microsoft Teams is getting Outlook integration, tasks support, and more (The Verge)
Microsoft Ignite 2019: Meet Project Cortex, Office 365 knowledge-management service (ZDNet)
Microsoft is bringing Cortana to Outlook for iOS and Android with a new ‘masculine’ voice (The Verge)
Introducing Our New Company Brand (Facebook Newsroom)
Photoshop for iPad is now available in the App Store (WCCFTech)
The Internet Archive Is Making Wikipedia More Reliable (Wired)

(Bonus) Steve Case on Investing Outside of Silicon Valley Nov 02, 2019

Show notes

Steve Case is obviously an internet and technology legend, as the founder of America Online. But as I said when I did a segment about it this week, I’ve always been fascinated with his Rise of the Rest Tour and Fund because, look, the whole basic principle of the project is to try new things, try to find new ideas and new people in new places. So after doing the segment on the new Rise of the Rest Fund II, I reached out to Steve to learn more about what he’s been learning as he’s been barnstorming the country to try to find exciting new companies outside of the major tech hubs.

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WeWorkRemotely

Fri. 11/01 - Google Acquires Fitbit Nov 01, 2019

Show notes

Google acquires Fitbit, Apple TV+ officially launches, might the US Government be about to bring the hammer down on TikTok, and of course, the Weekend Longreads suggestions.

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Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

50 years ago today, the internet was born in Room 3420 (Fast Company)
Talking with former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos (CJR)
Everything is Amazing, But Nothing is Ours (AlexDanco.com)
The Gross Margin Problem: Lessons for Tech-Enabled Startups (Craft)
The Ransomware Superhero of Normal, Illinois (ProPublica)

Thu. 10/31 - Twitter Takes A Stand (And Subtweets Facebook) Oct 31, 2019

Show notes

Twitter says it will ban ALL political advertising, Cognizant says it is getting out of the content moderation business, Facebook earnings are good, Apple earnings are good… and evolving, and can the Chinese monitor SMS messages at the provider level, at scale?

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Jack Dorsey's Twitter Thread
Zuckerberg defends politician ads that will be 0.5% of 2020 revenue (TechCrunch)
Aaron Sorkin: An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg (NYTimes)
Facebook shares rise on strong Q3, users up 2% to 2.45B (TechCrunch)
A Facebook content moderation vendor is quitting the business after two Verge investigations (The Verge)
Apple is laying the groundwork for an iPhone subscription (CNBC)
Researchers unearth malware that siphoned SMS texts out of telco’s network (ArsTechnica)
Unraveling the Secret Origins of an AmazonBasics Battery (OneZero)

Wed. 10/30 - HBO Max Deets Oct 30, 2019

Show notes

WhatsApp sues the NSO Group about that crazy exploit, Uber is threating to sue Los Angeles about a crazy tracking program that I’m not sure about, we’ve got the full details surrounding HBO Max, an activist is taking Facebook’s political advertising policy to its logical conclusion, and how come none of you told me about Mario Kart Tour?

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Why WhatsApp is pushing back on NSO Group hacking (Washington Post)
WhatsApp Says Israeli Firm Used Its App in Spy Program (NYTimes)
The New HBO Max is competing with Netflix by giving you Friends and Game of Thrones for $15 a month (Recode)
Report: Apple to Use Qualcomm's X55 5G Modem in All Three 2020 iPhones (MacRumors)
Uber in talks with Los Angeles as scooter location data lawsuit looms (CNET)
Privacy groups actually side with Uber in scooter data fight (Mashable)
This man is running for governor of California so he can run false Facebook ads (CNN Business)
Mario Kart Tour Has a Rocket Start With 123.9 Million Downloads in Its First Month (SensorTower)

Tue. 10/29 - Playstation Vue Goes To The Deadpool Oct 29, 2019

Show notes

Earnings from Alphabet and Shopify, hacking the Olympics, the Rise of the Rest rides again, Amazon is making grocery delivery free and letting you pay your electric bill via Alexa, and don’t update your HomePod, or you might brick it.

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Alphabet Earnings Dented by Spending on Cloud Business (Bloomberg)
Shopify Shares Tumble After Surprise Loss on Spending Boost (Bloomberg)
Microsoft: Russian hackers are targeting sporting organizations ahead of Tokyo Olympics (ZDNet)
AOL Founder Steve Case Launches Second $150 Million ‘Rise Of The Rest’ Fund To Back Entrepreneurs Across U.S. (Forbes)
China to Funnel $29 Billion Towards its Chip Ambitions (Bloomberg)
Amazon axes $14.99 Amazon Fresh fee, making grocery delivery free for Prime members to boost use (TechCrunch)
Amazon will let you pay bills with Alexa (VentureBeat)
New 13.2 Update Bricking Some HomePods [Update Pulled by Apple] (MacRumors)
PlayStation Vue is Shutting Down Live TV Streaming Service in January (The Streamable)

Mon. 10/28 - Who Needs An Event? The AirPods Pro Are Here! Oct 28, 2019

Show notes

AirPods Pro are here, new Nvidia streaming gadgets are here, Alphabet might be about to acquire Fitbit, the fallout from the Pentagon JEDI contract and what happens when your entire city orders from Amazon every single day.

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Apple reveals new AirPods Pro, available October 30 (Apple NewsRoom)
Apple unveils new in-ear AirPods Pro coming October 30 for $249 (9to5Mac)
Google parent Alphabet makes offer to buy Fitbit, sending stock soaring (CNBC)
Nvidia’s new Shield TV wins the Android TV market with amazing 4K upscaling (TechCrunch)
Microsoft snags hotly contested $10 billion defense contract, beating out Amazon (CNBC)
Spotify grows users 30% in Q3 2019, premium subscribers reach 113 million (VentureBeat)
Microsoft’s Xbox bundles are back and ready for the new Project Scarlett Xbox (The Verge)
1.5 Million Packages a Day: The Internet Brings Chaos to N.Y. Streets (NYTimes)

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