Tech Brew Ride Home

Why Google ghosting Huawei might lead to a chain reaction for all of tech, the Sprint/T-Mobile merger gets a shot in the arm, GM sort of gets the point of software, I guess, and why 5G might be horrible for weather forecasting.

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Exclusive: Google suspends some business with Huawei after Trump blacklist - source (Reuters)

Huawei responds to Android ban with service and security guarantees, but its future is unclear (TechCrunch)

Y Combinator promotes Geoff Ralston to president, while Sam Altman shifts to advisor role (TechCrunch)

Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2 drops to $999 and adds Qualcomm’s XR1 (VentureBeat)

T-Mobile, Sprint Get Merger Backing From FCC Chairman (WSJ)

5G NETWORKS COULD THROW WEATHER FORECASTING INTO CHAOS (Wired)

GM GIVES ALL ITS VEHICLES A NEW SOUL (Wired)

Top ‘Live-Streamers’ Get $50,000 an Hour to Play New Videogames Online (WSJ)

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Eric Jackson is an investor at EMJ Capital Ltd. He’s deep in the media space, he’s deep in the streaming wars, as I think I say in this episode, he’s shaped a ton of my thinking about the streaming wars. So… where are we? Who’s up? Who’s down? Is it time to get bullish on Disney+ for a ton of reasons? Eric has a great podcast: The Eric Jackson Podcast.

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You know them, you love them, Jay Yarrow of CNBC, Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times. It’s another Jay and Farhad Show Reunion! Today’s topics: Uber’s IPO, the Streaming Wars, and Game of Thrones! These are my favorite episodes. I just hit record, and we thumb wrestle each other to get in a hot take. :)

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Can Minecraft Earth be the killer app for AR? Are the best and brightest shunning working at Facebook? Has drone maker DJI beaten GoPro at its own game? And do I have some killer weekend longreads suggestions? You better believe I do.

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Hewlett Packard Enterprise to buy supercomputer maker Cray in $1.30 billion deal (Reuters)

MINECRAFT EARTH GOES A STEP BEYOND POKÉMON GO TO COVER THE WORLD IN BLOCKS (TheVerge)

Facebook has struggled to hire talent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, according to recruiters who worked there (CNBC)

Alphabet’s Wing will kick off Helsinki drone deliveries in summer 2019 (VentureBeat)

DJI is out-GoProing GoPro with its own action camera (TechCrunch)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

How the Promise of a $120 Billion Uber I.P.O. Evaporated (NYTimes)

WHY I (STILL) LOVE TECH: IN DEFENSE OF A DIFFICULT INDUSTRY (Wired)

Editorial: Why Apple created Apple TV+ rather than buying Netflix (AppleInsider)

The Pivot (Asymco/Horace Dediu)

AS COMMERCIAL SPACEFLIGHT TAKES OFF, THE AVIATION INDUSTRY GETS PROTECTIVE OF AIRSPACE (The Verge)

The Fusion Reactor Next Door (NYTimes)

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The hammer is coming down on Huawei, China blocks Wikipedia, Google clarifies the Works with Nest shutdown, a 1TB microSD, more 5G rollouts, what should we think of Quibi and you didn’t fall for that porn scam did you?

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Trump administration cracks down on giant Chinese tech firm, escalating clash with Beijing (Washington Post)

Trump’s Huawei Threat Is the Nuclear Option to Halt China’s Rise (Bloomberg)

Instagram is killing Direct, its standalone Snapchat clone app, in the next several weeks (TechCrunch)

Report: Apple’s custom 5G modems may not arrive until 2025 after ‘long and painful divorce’ with Intel (The Information)

China has blocked all language versions of Wikipedia (Mashable)

Sprint will launch 5G on May 31 in 4 cities with LG V50 and HTC 5G Hub (VentureBeat)

Streaming Service Quibi Seeks Up to $1 Billion in New Funding (The Information)

Exclusive: Scammed Porn Watchers Have Paid Nearly $1 Million in Bitcoin Blackmail (Fortune)

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There’s a new major chip flaw called ZombieLoad, the major tech companies sign on to the so-called Christchurch Call to Action, San Francisco bans facial recognition tech, is Google effectively deprecating search, and did Beyonce make $300M on Uber?

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New secret-spilling flaw affects almost every Intel chip since 2011 (TechCrunch)

Facebook changes livestream rules after New Zealand shooting (CNN)

White House declines to back Christchurch call to stamp out online extremism amid free speech concerns (Washington Post)

San Francisco passes city government ban on facial recognition tech (TechCrunch)

Google’s combining all its travel planning features under a site called Trips (The Verge)

New native Discovery ad campaigns from Google monetize Discover feed for first time (Search Engine Land)

Beyoncé Is Going To Make Bank From Uber Going Public (Yahoo Finance)

WhatsApp discovered one of the craziest flaws I’ve ever heard about in mobile, Disney now controls all of Hulu, now we’ve got folding laptops, the One Plus 7 Pro is another strike against $1,000 phones and is bitcoin back?

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WhatsApp voice calls used to inject Israeli spyware on phones (Financial Times)

WhatsApp discovers 'targeted' surveillance attack (BBC)

Disney to take full control over Hulu, Comcast has option to sell its stake in 5 years (CNBC)

Lenovo shows off the world’s first ‘foldable PC’ (The Verge)

Walmart announces next-day delivery, firing back at Amazon (CNBC)

Apple announces support for Apple Pay NFC stickers, partners with Bird scooters and more (9to5Mac)

ONEPLUS 7 PRO REVIEW: PROOF THAT OTHER BIG PHONES COST TOO MUCH (The Verge)

Uber Misses the Enchanted Forest (Bloomberg)

Uber's underwater investors (Axios)

Up $1,200 on the Day, Bitcoin’s Price Surges Above $8K (CoinDesk)

A Supreme Court ruling might spell trouble for Apple and others, Amazon is automating the boxers out of a job, Discord is doing some serious MAU’s, what the death of Nest means for IOT, and a LITERAL Bitcoin treasure hunt.

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Supreme Court deals Apple major setback in App Store antitrust case (CNBC)

Exclusive: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs (Reuters)

Amazon Offers to Pay Employees $10,000 to Quit Their Jobs and Deliver Packages Instead (Time.com)

Slack says it’s going to replace email and is as necessary as electricity in its pitch to investors (CNBC)

Discord, Slack for gamers, tops 250 million registered users (CNET)

FDA clears first 6-lead consumer ECG, AliveCor’s $150 KardiaMobile 6L (VentureBeat)

Google Just Handed Amazon A Massive Advantage In Smart Home Tech (Forbes)

Nest, the company, died at Google I/O 2019 (ArsTechnica)

‘Satoshi’s Treasure’ Is a Global Puzzle With a $1 Million Bitcoin Prize (CoinDesk)

Not too long ago I did a longreads suggestion about Huawei and listener Dexter Thillien got in touch, because he’s a telecoms analyst, and he was actually quoted in the article. Over email, he educated me about some of my misconceptions about Huawei and I was like, “Don’t just school me! Come on the podcast and let’s catch everyone on up Huawei!” And so, today, we do that. Where did Huawei come from? How did it get to a place where it’s the pre-eminent 5G infrastructure firm? Is Huawei just a tool of the Chinese government. I do apologize for the somewhat poor Skype connection, but the content here is so good, you won’t even notice. My thanks to Dexter Thillien.

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I knew Uber was going public this week, and it occurred to me that since this podcast started, my default position has been: Uber: super cool company, but a lot of people have a lot of doubts about them. But I realized, I had never explained that, or gone into detail about WHY people feel that way… unlike how we’ve done with other things. So, I reached out to Shira Ovide at Bloomberg, not to talk trash about Uber, but to… let’s say… get the skeptic’s take about Uber’s business model— which is the ride hailing business model, in a way, which is also the sharing economy business model in a way—so, in that vein, we also talk about WeWork a bit too (which people are also skeptical of).

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