Techmeme
December 31, 2019, 8:45 AM

Top News

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Microsoft wins court order to seize 50 domains run by North Korean cyber-espionage group Thallium, the fourth APT Microsoft has combated with this tactic  —  Microsoft takes control of 50 domains operated by Thallium (APT37), a North Korean cyber-espionage group.
Bloomberg:
Uber, Postmates sue CA to block AB5, days ahead of bill taking effect, say law unconstitutionally targets gig economy companies and benefits other industries  —  - Companies call labor rights measure unfair, unconstitutional  — A.B. 5 will qualify many contractors for employment benefits
Yahoo News:
Overview of the ongoing efforts by the US to modernize its spy operations, to contain the damage from the 2014 OPM breach, be more resilient to tracking, more  —  When hackers began slipping into computer systems at the Office of Personnel Management in the spring of 2014 …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Sonos should rethink its Trade Up program's “Recycle Mode”, which bricks old Sonos devices for a discount on newer ones, and consider a policy of reuse  —  An irreversible kill switch for a discount is a bad deal for the environment  —  Late last week, Sonos was called …
Brenda Goh / Reuters:
Huawei's Rotating Chairman Eric Xu estimates the company's 2019 revenue grew 18% YoY to $122B, says it shipped 240M smartphones, but forecasts “difficult” 2020  —  SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Huawei Technologies on Tuesday said its full-year revenue would likely jump 18% in 2019 to 850 billion yuan …
Kate Eichhorn / MIT Technology Review:
Obsessive documentation of one's life online has made it hard for young people to shed their past identities and might have bad effects for society at large  —  As past identities become stickier for those entering adulthood, it's not just individuals who will suffer.  Society will too.
Dan Sabbagh / The Guardian:
UK surveillance watchdog: public bodies have insufficient government guidance on when it's appropriate to use facial recognition, lip-reading tech, and more  —  CCTV commissioner says he gets many queries about facial recognition and other tools  —  Police forces, hospitals and councils struggle …
Hannah Frishberg / New York Post:
Report: in January, YouTube will expand limitations on the data that videos aimed at kids can collect and stop showing personalized ads to underage viewers  —  Children are worth their weight in data to YouTube creators, who're scrambling to stop the Federal Trade Commission from taking that income away.
Peerzada Abrar / Business Standard:
Report: Indian startups raised a record $14.5B in 2019, up from $10.5B in 2018 and $550M in 2010; Sequoia, Accel, and Tiger Global were the most active VCs  —  As the decade is coming to an end, it has seen an impressive 25x growth from a tiny $550 million in 2010 to $14.5 billion in 2019 …
Alistair Gray / Financial Times:
US shoppers are expected to return $100B worth of unwanted goods bought this holiday season; online purchases 3x more likely to be returned than those in stores  —  US consumers are expected to send back a record $100bn worth of unwanted goods bought between Thanksgiving and Christmas as the rise of ecommerce causes a returns epidemic.

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More News

Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Reuters:
Tony Romm / Washington Post:

Earlier Picks

David Streitfeld / New York Times:
Byuu / Medium:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: