Tech Brew Ride Home

The Verge and AT&T have a trademark dispute, the city of Los Angeles and The Weather Channel app have a location data dispute, more on how shows like Bandersnatch really might be the future of storytelling and the weekend longreads suggestions.

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Links:

AT&T tries to trademark ‘Verge TV’ as if we’re going to let them get away with it (The Verge)

Los Angeles Accuses Weather Channel App of Covertly Mining User Data (NYTimes)

D-Link debuts a 5G Wi-Fi router with 40 times wired broadband speeds (Venture Beat)

BLACK MIRROR: BANDERSNATCH COULD BECOME NETFLIX’S SECRET MARKETING WEAPON (The Verge)

Longreads:

Podcast suggestion: Daily Fortnite

Courier Prime

He Hawks Young Blood As A New Miracle Treatment. All That’s Missing Is Proof. (HuffPo)

Curbs on A.I. Exports? Silicon Valley Fears Losing Its Edge (NYTimes)

The Bird Box Effect: How Memes Drive Users to Netflix (The Ringer)

Birding Like It’s 1899: Inside a Blockbuster American West Video Game (Audubon)

How Space and Time Could Be a Quantum Error-Correcting Code (Quanta)

The Hacker News discussion of the Quanta piece

Apple lowers its guidance and the tech world freaks out, the company that you can outsource your censorship friendly China content to, a more durable e-scooter is coming and what to expect from CES.

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Links:

Letter from Tim Cook to Apple investors 

Censoring China’s Internet, for Stability and Profit (NYTimes)

Segway unveils a more durable electric scooter and autonomous delivery bot (TechCrunch)

What to expect from CES 2019 (TechCrunch)

Today, Roku is quietly a major combatant in the Streaming Wars, Tesla slashes prices, how many cameras can we fit on a smartphone, how much would it cost to convince you to quit Facebook, and why Bandersnatch might just be the beginning of the choose your own adventure trend.

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Links:

Activision Plans to Fire CFO Neumann, Puts Him on Paid Leave (Bloomberg)

ROKU BREAKS FREE FROM BOXES AND TVS (Wired)

Tesla slashes EV prices by $2,000 to offset reduced tax credits (Engadget)

[Exclusive] Nokia 9 PureView Penta-camera Phone Revealed in Full Glory in First-ever Promo Video (Mysmartprice)

Economists calculate the true value of Facebook to its users in new study (ArsTechnica)

Popsugar's Twinning app was leaking everyone's uploaded photos (TechCrunch)

HOW THE SURPRISE NEW INTERACTIVE BLACK MIRROR CAME TOGETHER (Wired)

Happy 2019! And... here's what we've got on tap for the pod in the new year!

Instagram briefly goes horizontal, more on how epic Fortnite has been for Epic Games this year, Larry Ellison joins Tesla’s board, the global GPS wars are joined and the last weekend longreads of the year.

Links:

Instagram briefly switched to a horizontal feed and people freaked out (The Verge)

Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, banked a $3 billion profit in 2018 (TechCrunch)

Exclusive: Foxconn to begin assembling top-end Apple iPhones in India in 2019 - source (Reuters)

Tesla Taps Ellison, HR Expert to Prove Musk Is Reined In (Bloomberg)

China ramps up global coverage for domestic Beidou satellite navigation system as rival to GPS (South China Morning Post)

The Betterment Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

The Devchat.tv podcasts

The GPS wars have begun (TechCrunch)

Amazon gets into health insurance — and more 2019 health-tech predictions from top experts (CNBC)

The biggest technology failures of 2018 (MIT Technology Review)

Why Your Next Home Might Not Need Any Energy at All (WSJ)

THE 'FUTURE BOOK' IS HERE, BUT IT'S NOT WHAT WE EXPECTED (Wired)

Bird Box Is the First Great Monster Movie About This Poisonous Invention (PaleoFuture/Gizmodo)

Amazon has a record-breaking holiday season, surprising absolutely no one, another Instagram crackdown, a look at Austin as a tech hub, and why mobile alerts are a Frankenstein monster increasingly out of control.

Amazon Says Alexa Voice Shopping Tripled During 2018 Holiday Season (Fortune)

Instagram’s Christmas Crackdown (The Atlantic)

Tesla's Supercharger network will cover all of Europe in 2019 (Engadget)

With Tech Expansion, Austin Is Still Weird. It’s Just More Wired Now, Too. (NYTimes)

Pushed Even Further: US Newsrooms View Mobile Alerts as a Standalone Platform (CJR)

Movie Theaters Bounce Back: What’s Behind the 2018 Rebound (Variety)

Watch the trailer for Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, releasing Friday 28th on Netflix (The Verge)

How the US government shutdown affects cybersecurity, how the Open Government Data Act is possibly good tech governance, Airbnb and Slack are considering non-traditional IPOs and the state of AI research at the end of 2018.

How a government shutdown affects America’s cybersecurity workforce (FifthDomain)

In a huge win for open data, Congress passes the Open, Public, Electronic, and Necessary Government Data Act (BoingBoing)

Wall Street Quietly Shelves Its Bitcoin Dreams (Bloomberg)

Layoffs Underway Amid ‘Adjustments,’ Bitcoin Miner Bitmain Confirms (CoinDesk)

HQ Trivia launches HQ Words as reinstalled CEO seeks a game-changer (TechCrunch)

Airbnb and Slack are considering untraditional IPOs that box out bankers like Spotify did (Recode)

Geoffrey Hinton and Demis Hassabis: AGI is nowhere close to being a reality (VentureBeat)

Facebook is developing a cryptocoin for WhatsApp, Blind was not quite anonymous enough, which is the most accurate voice assistant and of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.

Sponsors:

Metalab.co

The Internet of Things Podcast

Links:

Facebook Is Developing a Cryptocurrency for WhatsApp Transfers, Sources Say (Bloomberg)

At Blind, a security lapse revealed private complaints from Silicon Valley employees (TechCrunch)

Apple AI Chief John Giannandrea Gets Promotion to Senior Vice President (MacRumors)

Annual Smart Speaker IQ Test (LoopVentures)

The Betterment Weekend Longreads:

Software Defined Talk (Podcast)

Apple Computers Used to Be Built in the U.S. It Was a Mess (NYTimes)

Inside Shenzhen’s race to outdo Silicon Valley (Bloomberg)

The 2019 IPO class headlined by Uber will create a ton of new wealth. Will the billions go to mansions or missions? (Recode)

Venture Capital Blind Spots: The Top 7 Reasons Why VCs Miss Billion-Dollar Outcomes (645 Ventures)

Prime and Punishment (The Verge)

7 Modern BBSes Worth Calling Today (PCMag)

Now some iPhones can’t be sold in Germany, is there an iPad Pro bend-gate brewing, drones shut down a major UK airport, and why Carlton from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is suing the makers of Fortnite.

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Metalab.co

The Cyberwire Podcast

Links:

Apple to Stop Selling iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 Models in Germany While Appealing Broader Sales Ban [Updated]  (MacRumors)

Apple confirms some iPad Pros ship slightly bent, but says it’s normal (The Verge)

Justice Department charges Chinese nationals in ‘extensive’ global hacking campaign (CNBC)

Uber's self-driving cars return to public roads after fatal crash (CNET)

Drones cause holiday chaos at one of London's busiest airports (Engadget)

Gatwick Airport: Drones ground flights (BBC News)

Pinterest Readies Itself for Early 2019 IPO (WSJ)

FORTNITE KEEPS STEALING DANCES — AND NO ONE KNOWS IF IT’S ILLEGAL (The Verge)

I’m sorry. I truly am. Another Facebook scandal to tell you about. The Boring Company unveils its tunnel, Zwift is gamification, a fitness app play, a social network, VR, and e-sports all in one startup and why Touch ID might return to the iPhone.

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Metalab.co

Grumpy Old Geeks Podcast