Google is rolling out its version of Facebook’s powerful news feed. Google’s feed will appear when users open its mobile app; instead of articles shared by friends, it will be full of stuff Google recommends, based on your search history. Google might eventually bring the concept to mobile web browsers. [Mark Bergen / Bloomberg]
Recode Daily: Google Glass is back with a focus on factory workers, not fashionistas
Plus, Discovery and Scripps are flirting with a merger again, and inmates at San Quentin produce a top podcast.
AGCO / Backchannel
After an overhyped debut in 2012, Google Glass has survived the backlash, and a revised version of the once-derided smart glasses has found a niche in an unexpected place: Factories and warehouses. Called Glass Enterprise Edition, or Glass EE, the camera-equipped wearable computer has been refocused as a practical workplace tool. [Steven Levy / Backchannel]
Discovery Communications has rekindled merger talks with Scripps Networks Interactive, a deal that would create a $19 billion cable network, and unite two smaller networks under pressure to bulk up in a cable TV industry being upended by digital consumption. The companies have previously explored a tie-up several times, but dropped the effort in 2014. [Jessica Toonkel / Reuters]
NBC has 30 employees working on a twice-daily news show exclusively for Snapchat. Called “Stay Tuned,” the show will feature four or five big headlines, with episodes running under three minutes. Meanwhile, Snap has started selling its Spectacles camera glasses on Amazon for $129.99. [Kurt Wagner / Recode]
Rachel Whetstone has joined the communications team at Facebook in a newly created role as VP of comms for WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger products; in April, she left her job at Uber as that company’s top public relations and policy exec. And Apple has placed engineering leader Isabel Ge Mahe as head of its China operations, a new role. [Kara Swisher / Recode]
Leaders of major U.S. companies with deep ties to China will meet with their Chinese counterparts today in Washington, D.C., aiming to ease the increasingly rocky economic relationship between the countries. Hosted by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur L. Ross, the session will be brokered by Jack Ma, executive chairman of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, and Stephen A. Schwarzman, co-founder of private equity firm the Blackstone Group. [Kate Kelly / The New York Times]
The founder and CEO of a fast-growing advertising company resigned under mysterious circumstances, just a month after he promised a “major rebranding” of the firm formerly known as xAd, which uses location data to customize the ads shown on mobile devices. Dipanshu “D” Sharma stepped down as head of the New York-based ad tech startup GroundTruth yesterday “amid an investigation into allegations of violations of company policy,” according to a companywide email obtained by Recode. [Theodore Schleifer / Recode]
Top stories from Recode
Instagram says about 21 percent of its users are soccer fans.
The ride-hail company says 200 of its close to 60,000 cars in New York are accessible.
Greylock’s Reid Hoffman and SoftBank’s Shu Nyatta will join Nauto’s board as part of the investment.
This is cool
Ear Hustle, a podcast produced by inmates at California’s San Quentin State Prison, launched in mid-June and has already exceeded 1.5 million downloads and hit the top spot on the iTunes podcast ranking. The podcast brings listeners stories of life inside prison, shared and produced by those living it; it was the winner of the podcast distribution network Radiotopia’s open call for new podcast ideas, which garnered more than 1,500 entries from 53 countries. [Tana Ganeva / Rolling Stone]
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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