10 things in tech you need to know today, July 25

A
Duke professor has accused a billionaire former student of
stealing research for an “invisibility cloak.”

Warner
Bros. Entertainment

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this
Wednesday.

1.
Alex Stamos, Facebook’s head of security, called for a radical
overhaul of how Facebook operates in a leaked memo from March
2018. He called for Facebook to collect less user
data, stop focusing on growth, and to listen to concerns when
people think a feature is “creepy.”

2.
Google demonstrated an impressive new AI-enabled automated voice
system that speaks and understands natural language much like the
now-famous Duplex digital
assistant. Dr. Fei-Fei Li, Google’s
chief AI scientist, stressed that the intention of the technology
is not to replace human customer service representatives.

3.
Uber is putting its self-driving cars back on public roads for
the first time since a fatal accident that resulted in the death
of a pedestrian. The cars will operate only in
“manual” mode, though, with a human driver in control at all
times.

4.
Google is bringing a host of new AI writing features to its G
Suite apps. The company announced new smart replies
for Hangouts, autocomplete for emails and grammar suggestions for
Google Docs.

5.
Facebook refuses to say if it has seen evidence of Russian
meddling on its social network ahead of the 2018 US midterm
elections. On a conference call with reporters on
Tuesday, Facebook representatives were asked multiple times if
they had seen evidence, but dodged the question.

6. Airbnb
could be facing a huge blow in New York. Last week
New York City councillors voted that the company has to hand over
the names and addresses of its hosts, which the city will in turn
use to crackdown on short-term home rentals.

7.
Facebook is opening a subsidiary in China, even though the social
media giant is blocked in the country. The company
says it will launch an “innovation hub” to support local
developers.

8.
Tesla shares dropped over 4% after an embarrassing memo was
leaked to the press. The memo showed the electric
car company asking suppliers for refunds.

9.
Apple apologized for the MacBook throttling ‘bug’ and released a
software fix. Apple is rolling out an update to the
2018 MacBook Pros which should fix the controversial overheating
issue, which Apple claims is caused by a firmware bug.

10.
A billionaire known as ‘China’s Elon Musk’ is suspected of spying
while he was a Duke student and stealing a professor’s
invisibility technology. Liu Ruopeng studied at Duke
University under David Smith, one of the world’s leading experts
on metamaterials.

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