10 things in tech you need to know today
Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Tuesday.
1. A lengthy New Yorker profile of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg details how deeply he is thinking about issues such as monopoly and competition, privacy, and combating misinformation. Zuckerberg has become extremely careful about what he says publicly and, according to the profile, is trying to wrap his head around some of humanity's deepest and most contentious issues.
2. Snap's chief strategy officer, Imran Khan, is to leave the company. Insiders noted that Khan didn't have much background in media or advertising, though he was integral to taking it public.
3. Apple may name its new iPhones 'Xs,' 'Xs Max,' and 'Xr', according to Bloomberg. The iPhone Xs Max is expected to have a jumbo 6.5-inch screen, and Apple is expected to launch the new phones on Wednesday.
4. Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed on Friday that the company is about to have an "amazing" quarter, but frontline employees seem to be divided on whether that's true. One employee dismissed Musk's prediction that production had doubled as "laughable", but another said he and his colleagues were generally optimistic.
5. Apple's stock price took a hit on Monday after President Trump threatened new tariffs against China. Apple warned that the proposed tariffs could result in a price raise for Apple Watch and AirPods.
6. India's "Aadhar" digital identity system is facing major security issues once more, after a Huffington Post investigation found a software patch that could generate random Aadhar numbers. According to the report, the patch is in widespread use.
7. The founder of Twitch, Justin Kan, has raised $65 million for his legal startup Atrium. Twitch sold to Amazon for $1 billion, and Kan is hoping to repeat his success with Atrium, which builds software tools for law firms.
8. British flying car startup Vertical Aerospace conducted a test flight of its electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle this summer, and plans to launch an intercity flying taxi service by 2022. The 28-person startup is competing with the likes of Kitty Hawk, Uber, and Rolls-Royce in building flying taxis.
9. A new Pixelbook laptop from Google may have leaked in an online ad, which shows a flexible 2-in-1 laptop that looks similar to last year's Pixelbook, but with slimmer edges. Google is expected to announce the Pixelbook 2, along with other new hardware products like the Pixel 3, at an event on October 9.
10. Google Cloud chief Diane Greene announced in a blog post that Dr. Fei-Fei Li will return to her professorship at Stanford and Google Cloud AI's new leader will be Dr. Andrew Moore, of Carnegie Mellon University. Greene said in her blog post that Li will become an AI and machine learning advisor to Google.
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