Tech News
Tech News and Analysis from around the web
Olivia Carville / Bloomberg:
IBM reports Q3 revenue of $18B, down 3.9% YoY, the fifth consecutive down quarter; Red Hat sales of $371M, included for the first time, did not stop the decline — - Third-quarter revenue fell 3.9% in fifth period of decline — Red Hat included in results for first time since 2018 purchase
Joe Otterson / Variety:
Mike Isaac's book, Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber, will be the basis for a Showtime series by Billions creators Brian Koppelman and David Levien — Brian Koppelman and David Levien are developing a limited series about ridesharing company Uber for Showtime.
Wall Street Journal:
Inside Facebook's attempt to launch its cryptocurrency, as major partners and most payments providers withdraw from Libra Association amid regulatory pressure — Major partners bolted after Washington challenged the social-media giant's foray into finance — David Marcus gathered …
Jason Gurwin / The Streamable:
Netflix says it expects “modest headwind” to near-term growth, but long-term growth should continue as new streaming services accelerate shift from linear TV — The Streamable is reader-supported and may earn an affiliate commission when you sign up with our links.
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Google's “ambient computing” vision, powered by smartphones and in-home devices, plays to its strengths, but challenges remain, like high costs to consumers — The most surprising revelation from yesterday's Made by Google 19 keynote came in Google Senior Vice President of Devices …
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Netflix reports Q3 revenue of $5.25B, up 31% YoY, 158M paid subs globally, up 21% YoY, as net adds increase to 6.8M, up 12% YoY but below 7M company forecast — Netflix CEO Reed Hastings split the company in two in 2011, thinking that the growing ubiquity of high-speed Internet access …
Natalie Jarvey / Hollywood Reporter:
Inside Bob Iger's risky bet on Disney+, set to launch with 35 originals in first year, which executives hope will have 60M to 90M global subscribers by 2024 — Disney+ leads a wave of billion-dollar Netflix competitors that are transforming the entertainment industry and launching a new age of ambition …
Spoiler alert for everything. Sorry. I should really put this piece on spoilers.io, if it only existed.
I'm on episode 8 of the final season of Breaking Bad, and I can now tell you why I cringe when people say it's the best TV show ever. I couldn't have said exactly why before.
I like all kinds of crime stories. I like Goodfellas and Pulp Fiction. The Godfather is the best movie ever made. The Maltese Falcon. The Departed. I love them all, and they all have one thing in common. The lead character is sympathetic. Tony Soproano is the mob boss who is seeing a shrink and has a neurotic wife whose approval he desperately wants. He's sympathetic. Would Succession be as good if Logan Roy wasn't proud of his son for being so awful? 💥
But Breaking Bad? I absolutely hate Walter White. Every episode provides new reasons to hate him. That's the central idea of the show. How hateable can we make Walter White? I hate that so many sympathetic people die before he goes. Gus Fring was sympathetic. Mike Ehrmentraut. I forget all the characters who die (I'm going to re-discover them now). All his adversaries are sympathetic. But he's an absolute worst piece of shit he could possibly be and the show is all about him.
One more thing. I'm a huge fan of Bojack Horseman. And his sidekick, like Gilligan to the Skipper, like Sgt Schultz to Col Klink, is Todd Chavez. Who is played by Aaron Paul who plays Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad. And this time around, I hear Todd's voice when Jesse speaks. It's funny! Of course there's more overt satire in Bojack, even though I'm sure the Breaking Bad writers meant it to be funny in a hateful way.
So I admire Breaking Bad. I am in awe of it, everything about it. But I also hate it because I have to focus on a character who I thoroughly despise.
As we all know President Trump is a spoiled rich kid.
Spoiled in the worst way.
So our government is that of a spoiled rich kid.
The previous Repub president was also a spoiled rich kid, only diff is he discovered Christ and corporate graft.
Trump went straight to the mob.
Jordan Pearson / VICE:
Yahoo says it is shutting down its long-running Yahoo Groups platform on October 21 and will permanently delete all posted content on December 14 — Users won't be able to upload new content to the site after October 21 and have until December 14 to archive their content, Yahoo said in an announcement.
Amy Thomson / Bloomberg:
Following the 2016 Brexit vote, analysis shows overseas bidders have announced ~$60B in deals for UK tech companies, driven in part by a weakened pound — In the run-up to Brexit, the home of Alan Turing and Tim Berners-Lee is looking like a tech bargain. — Overseas bidders have announced …
Dami Lee / The Verge:
Instagram is rolling out new features over six months that help users manage third-party app permissions, including removing them and seeing requested data — See who has your data at a glance — Instagram has added a new feature for users to control the data they're sharing with third-party apps.
Stephanie Findlay / Financial Times:
A look at India's booming video streaming market, fueled by Reliance Jio's cheap data, as companies like Flipkart and delivery service Zomato invest in content — As Netflix and Amazon splurge on original content to win streaming supremacy in India, Bollywood producer Tanveer Bookwala has never been so busy.
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
FCC has formally approved the merger between T-Mobile and Sprint on a party-line vote, with Democrats dissenting — But the deal won't close just yet — On Wednesday, the Federal Communications Commission formally approved the merger between T-Mobile and Sprint, an FCC official told The Verge.
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Google pulls Google Clips, its AI-powered automatic camera from 2017, from its store — Google makes a lot of bets on AI, but one of its most strange was that of Google Clips. Launched in 2017, the camera was designed to take pictures completely on its own to capture moments that it otherwise wouldn't.
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
As Works with Nest winds down, Google shares new initiatives to securely automate homes, including limited Home Routines and a Device Access opt-in program — ‘Works With Nest’ will be replaced by a tighter set of rules for partner devices — For years, home automation tech has been a nightmare for security and privacy.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
TikTok hires law firm K&L Gates to help it form a US content moderation committee, following criticism of its uneven banning of political content — As TikTok continues its rapid U.S. growth, the company is being challenged to better explain its content moderation choices.
A reader asks how to find posts from previous months. I explained.
- I've used a lot of different content management systems over the years, so the archives work differently.
- For example, this is the archive page for September of 2018.
- Some are in this form, for example July 2012.
- For most months it's one or the other.