Techmeme
July 29, 2020, 12:20 AM

Top News

The Amazon Blog:
Bezos statement to US House underscores Amazon's job creation, investments in social causes, and its role in supporting small and medium-sized businesses  —  Testimony before the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law  —  Statement by Jeffrey P. Bezos Founder & Chief …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Tim Cook will tell US lawmakers that App Store has opened the “gate wider” for developers, Apple isn't anticompetitive, and doesn't have “dominant market share”  —  Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook will tell U.S. lawmakers probing his company's market power …
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Sundar Pichai will tell lawmakers that Google operates in a “highly competitive” market and that its free products benefit the “average American”  —  - Ahead of a Wednesday House Judiciary hearing, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai released opening remarks that show …
New York Times:
Betsy Woodruff Swan / Politico:
Sam Shead / CNBC:
Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter work to pull versions of a video touting hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 cure, after it was shared by Trump and his allies  —  - A Breitbart video containing dangerous coronavirus misinformation went viral on Facebook before it was removed.
Andrew Griffin / The Independent:
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
AMC and Universal agree to shorten the theatrical window for films to 17 days, or 3 weekends, before Universal can release them onto premium on-demand platforms  —  Films only have to be in theaters for three weekends now before going to digital platforms  —  AMC Theaters and Universal …
The Markup:
Study of 15K+ recent popular queries finds Google devoted 41% of the first page of search results on mobile devices to its own properties and “direct answers”  —  The search engine dedicated almost half of the first page of results in our test to its own products, which dominated the coveted top of the page
New York Times:
Sources: after Airbnb and ClassPass began selling virtual classes, Apple wanted to collect its 30% commission on the sales, up from no fee previously  —  After Airbnb and ClassPass began selling virtual classes because of the pandemic, Apple tried to collect its commission on the sales.
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Revel suspends its electric moped service in NYC after two people were killed in recent weeks; at least one was not wearing a helmet during the crash  —  Two people were killed and one was critically injured while riding the shared electric mopeds  —  Revel is suspending its service …
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Spotify debuts Group Session feature in beta, letting up to five premium users simultaneously listen to same content  —  Simultaneously stream music or podcasts  —  Spotify is now allowing its paying users to listen to music and podcasts with friends and family at the same time, even if they aren't in the same location.
Jeffrey Dastin / Reuters:
Over about 8 years, Rite Aid quietly added facial recognition systems in 200 US stores, largely in low income areas, claiming it was meant to deter theft  —  In the hearts of New York and metro Los Angeles, Rite Aid installed facial recognition technology in largely lower-income, non-white neighborhoods, Reuters found.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft launches a new Family Safety app for iOS and Android that lets users manage screen time and app usage  —  Content filters, location sharing, and much more  —  Microsoft is launching a new Family Safety app for iOS and Android this week.  The software giant has been testing the app …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
In a reversal, CES says its event planned for January 2021 will be going all-digital, using a virtual meeting format for vendors, attendees, and the press  —  CES 2021 will take place in January as an all-digital event since the organizers feel it's the only way they can protect attendees during the pandemic.
Joel Rosenblatt / Bloomberg:
US DOJ asks federal judge for permission to drop charges against two ex-Twitter employees and a Saudi national who allegedly helped Riyadh spy on dissidents  —  The U.S. filed a revised indictment against two former Twitter Inc. employees and a Saudi national, alleging the three spied …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Gaming platform Roblox says it has 150M+ MAUs, up from 115M in February, and its developer community is on pace to earn $250M+ in 2020, up from $110M in 2019  —  Gaming platform Roblox, which has seen a surge of use due to the coronavirus pandemic, now has over 150 million monthly active users …
Larry Dignan / ZDNet:
AMD reports Q2 revenue of $1.93B, up 26% YoY, Computing and Graphics segment revenue of $1.37B, up 45% YoY; stock up ~9% after-hours  —  AMD's results land as its primary rival Intel has been struggling with its 7nm roadmap delays.  —  AMD reported better-than-expected second quarter results …
Rita Liao / TechCrunch:
Profile of Imint, a Swedish company that makes deep learning software for phone manufacturers like Huawei, Vivo, and Oppo to stabilize videos in real time  —  If your phone takes amazing photos, chances are its camera has been augmented by artificial intelligence embedded in the operating system.
Euirim Choi / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Instagram has made lucrative offers, some in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, to entice some of TikTok's most popular creators to use Reels  —  Instagram makes lucrative offers to popular TikTok users to join its new competing service, raising stakes in social-media rivalry
Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE:
RangeForce raises $16M Series A led by Energy Impact Partners to help businesses train their cybersecurity teams  —  Cybersecurity training startup RangeForce said today it has armed itself with $16 million from an early-stage funding round led by Energy Impact Partners.

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
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Tribe AI:
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Zoho:
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Hamming:
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