Techmeme
August 3, 2019, 8:05 PM

Top News

Nick Statt / The Verge:
Goldman Sachs reveals Apple Card customer agreement, says jailbreaking as well as purchasing cryptocurrency, casino chips, and lottery tickets is forbidden  —  Apple has revealed more details about its upcoming credit card, and the Apple Card will come with one unique restriction and one not-so-unique restriction.
Alex Heath / The Information:
Facebook to rebrand Instagram and WhatsApp to “Instagram from Facebook” and “WhatsApp from Facebook”, sources say causing surprise and confusion internally  —  In a big shift, Facebook plans to signal its control of Instagram and WhatsApp by adding its name to both apps …
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Amazon says it will let users opt out of human review of the voice recordings picked up by Alexa, following similar moves by Apple and Google  —  - Alexa reviewers transcribe, annotate some voice recordings  — Apple, Google suspended human voice review programs this week
Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
A data breaches seller provides evidence that sneaker marketplace StockX was hacked in May, says 6.8M records with contact info and hashed passwords were taken  —  It wasn't “system updates” as it claimed.  StockX was mopping up after a data breach, TechCrunch can confirm.
Melanie Ehrenkranz / Gizmodo:
UK data science company DataSparQ has developed “AI Bar”, an AI-powered facial recognition system to help bartenders check IDs, fill orders faster and fairer  —  Facial recognition systems have, to date, proven to be biased, unjust, flawed, and deeply powerful.
Thomas Ricker / The Verge:
Google will let Android users in Europe choose their default search engine starting in 2020; inclusion on the choice screen will be determined via auction  —  Only the top-three bidders will appear alongside Google on the choice screen  —  Starting in early 2020, Google will present …
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Apple spent $4.2B, or 7.9% of its revenue, on R&D in Q3, the highest percentage of R&D spending since 2003, and is on track to spend $16B in 2019  —  KEY POINTS  — Apple CFO Luca Maestri hinted that R&D would continue to rise, and said that the company's $1 billion purchase …
Ben Riley-Smith / Telegraph:
Sources: US officials warn the UK that a free trade deal would not happen if digital services tax on companies like Google and Amazon becomes UK law this fall  —  Donald Trump's administration is warning Britain that it will not get a free trade deal unless a new tax affecting US tech giants is dropped, The Telegraph can reveal.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
FTC is looking into the Amazon/Apple deal that kicked many small resellers off Marketplace, has interviewed at least one reseller of refurbished MacBooks  —  Experts say the deal raises serious antitrust concerns  —  Last year, Amazon cut a deal with Apple to bring direct iPhone sales to its platform for the first time.
Zen Soo / South China Morning Post:
Hong Kong startup Tink Labs, which has raised $160M to provide free-to-use smartphones in hotel rooms, is shutting down in many markets, undergoing mass layoffs  —  Handy is a smartphone service operated by Tink Labs that equipped hotels globally with in-room handsets for guests Tink Labs informed employees …

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More News

Mark Wilson / Fast Company:

Earlier Picks

Mark Harris / The Guardian:
Dell Cameron / Gizmodo:
Ben Fox Rubin / CNET: