Business, Spoken

There are smart speakers, which connect wirelessly to other devices, and then there’s the new era of smart speakers, designed to offer services through voice-controlled virtual assistants. Sonos, for a long time, was all about the former, having been a pioneer of high-quality, WiFi-connected speaker systems. Now it’s entered the next era with products like Sonos One and Sonos Beam, which work with Amazon’s Alexa and other virtual assistants. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

There once was a legendary troll, and from its hideout beneath an overpass of the information superhighway, it prodded into existence the internet we know, love, and increasingly loathe. That troll, Ken ZZ03, struck in 1995. But to make sense of the profound aftereffects—and why Big Tech is finally reckoning with this part of its history—you have to look back even further. In 1990, an online newsletter called Rumorville accused a competitor, Skuttlebutt, of being a “scam. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Last month, a California Assembly committee voted to remove key protections from a state-level net neutrality bill. Critics said the changes opened loopholes that would allow broadband providers to throttle some applications, or charge websites or services for "fast lane" access on their networks. Now those key protections are coming back. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Reddit’s little mascot, Snoo, contains multitudes. The precious, ever-smiling alien hangs out at the top of hundreds of subreddits, mixing with the locals like a savvy politician. In r/trees, a community for marijuana enthusiasts, Snoo puffs a joint. In r/gonewild, Snoo poses for a selfie in a wig and lingerie. In r/Asceticism, Snoo dematerializes into the cyberether, its form the mere wisp of an outline. Cheeky bugger. Indeed, Snoo’s existence has always been something of an inside joke. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Widespread internet outages around the United States on Friday afternoon quelled productivity and sent irate customers to Twitter to complain. Comcast and Xfinity suffered the biggest service interruptions across its internet, cable, and landline products. The company, which has more than 29 million business and individual customers, said on Friday that the outages stemmed from fiber optic cables at two internet infrastructure companies that were cut or otherwise disrupted. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

It’s no secret that the federal government is way behind the private sector when it comes to modernization and technology. Because of these outdated systems, many federal agencies rank staggeringly behind the private sector when it comes to customer service. WIRED OPINION ABOUT US Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) (@RepRatcliffe) is chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure. US Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Earlier this month Microsoft announced plans to buy the code-hosting and collaboration site GitHub for $7.5 billion. It's hard to overstate how important GitHub is to modern software development. The service boasts about 28 million users and hosts 85 million codebases for a wide variety of organizations, including Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Walmart, and the US government. Much is open source code, a far cry from Microsoft’s roots making highly proprietary software. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Dell Technologies is going public again, five years after going private to transform itself amid slowing personal computer sales. Dell has certainly changed in those years, but it needs to change even more if it doesn't want to find itself back in the same position. Since going private, Dell has invested heavily in expanding its business selling hardware, software, and services for data centers. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Everywhere you look, regulators are cracking down on Airbnb. In Paris, the company’s largest market, hosts must now register with the city government and can only list their homes for 120 nights each year. In Amsterdam, new rules, which go into effect in 2019, will restrict hosts to listing for just 30 nights annually. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

When Steve, a thirtysomething engineer, launched a software company in San Francisco a few years ago, he and his cofounder faced the daunting task of hiring a team, from low-level engineers to a new VP. Novices, they nonetheless had an advantage: access to Option Impact, an exclusive database of tech salaries that has become a go-to reference for Silicon Valley startups. That insider information, Steve realized, has immense value. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices