Kate O’Neill reported for Wired about Facebook’s ’10 Year Challenge’.

Through the Facebook meme, most people have been helpfully adding that context back in (“me in 2008 and me in 2018”) as well as further info, in many cases, about where and how the pic was taken (“2008 at University of Whatever, taken by Joe; 2018 visiting New City for this year’s such-and-such event”).

In other words, thanks to this meme, there’s now a very large dataset of carefully curated photos of people from roughly 10 years ago and now.

The question is not where this meme originated from or whether it was started for malicious purposes. It is very plausible for that this data could be use to teach AI about how human ages.

Paul Lamkin wrote for Wareable that Google agreed to pay $40 million for Fossil’s secret smartwatch tech.

The Fossil Group and Google have exclusively revealed to Wareable that Google will pay Fossil $40 million to buy intellectual property related to a smartwatch technology currently under development.

The deal, which will see some of Fossil’s R&D team joining Google, will result in the launch of a “new product innovation that’s not yet hit the market”. That’s according to Greg McKelvey, EVP and chief strategy and digital officer of the Fossil Group, who also stated to us that he sees the deal as transaction, rather than an acquisition.

This points to the success of the Apple Watch and Google is scrambling to play catch up.

Jerry Hildenbrand wrote for Android Central about phone makers messing with Android’s memory management.

From Dontkillmyapp’s list, Nokia is the example I’ll use here, but the list of offenders includes OnePlus, Sony, and Samsung, too. Even Google itself is called out for making it difficult to exempt an app from getting “Dozed”. Nokia includes an app on every phone the company makes that runs Android Oreo or higher that kills every background process 20 minutes after the screen is turned off. That means fitness apps are never going to work, but it also means that your alarm isn’t going to go off if you have Android P.

Battery life is more important to Android phone makers than whether apps work well. App developers have to dance around the rules set by phone makers just to make apps that work as designed for Android users.

What’s your experience with Android apps on your Android phone?

Reuters reported that LG Electronics expects an 80 percent drop in fourth-quarter profit; analysts point to thinning TV margins.

South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc said on Tuesday its fourth-quarter operating profit likely plummeted 80 percent from the same period a year earlier, falling well below analyst expectations.

Remember when Apple revised their estimates for the fourth quarter?

Reuters reported that Samsung Electronics says weak chip demand sent fourth-quarter profit well below market estimates.

Samsung Electronics surprised the market on Tuesday with an estimated 29 percent drop in quarterly profit, blaming weak chip demand in a rare commentary issued to “ease confusion” among investors already fretting about a global tech slowdown.

This comes after LG reported a drop in profit as well.

Casey Newton reported for The Verge that Facebook gave Spotify and Netflix access to users’ private messages.

I find it helpful to read the allegations in the Times’ story chronologically, starting with the integration deals, continuing with the one-off agreements, and ending with instant personalization. Do so and you read a story of a company that, after some early success growing its user base by making broad data-sharing agreements with one set of companies — OEMs — it grew more confident, and proceeded to give away more and more, often with few disclosures to users. By the time “Instant personalization” arrived, it was widely panned, and never met Facebook’s hopes for it. Shortly after it was wound down, Facebook would take action against Cambridge Analytica, and once again began placing meaningful limitations on its API.

This makes me wonder… would Facebook do the same with WhatsApp messages?