Techmeme
September 2, 2020, 1:00 PM

Top News

Soumyarendra Barik / MediaNama:
India bans another 188 Chinese apps, including PUBG, Baidu, and Alipay, saying widespread concerns were flagged against the blocked apps  —  India on Wednesday banned 118 more apps, including popular gaming app PUBG, for allegedly being engaged in activities which are “prejudicial to sovereignty …
James Vincent / The Verge:
In response to UK's “digital services tax”, Apple says it will raise UK developer fees by 2% and Amazon says it will increase third-party seller fees by 2%  —  Developers, ad buyers, and third-party sellers are all affected  —  For many years, Europe has been unhappy with the tax habits of US tech giants.
Alex Barker / Financial Times:
Martin Brinkmann / gHacks Technology News:
Microsoft says it will bring its DirectStorage API from the Xbox to PCs, to reduce IO bottlenecks and improve game loading times and graphics details  —  When Microsoft announced the next Xbox console some time ago, it highlighted some features of the console's underlying architecture to demonstrate its power.
Lauren Kaori Gurley / VICE:
Amazon is spying on private Facebook Groups for Flex drivers in US, UK, and Spain, monitoring for complaints and labor actions, per internal reports left online  —  The company has a sophisticated and secret program that is surveilling dozens of private Facebook groups set up by workers, internal documents and reports show.
Bryan Menegus / Gizmodo:
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Intel announces 11th-generation Tiger Lake CPUs for laptops, with integrated Xe graphics, Thunderbolt 4 support, Wi-Fi 6, and more, coming this fall  —  The ‘best processor for thin-&-light’ laptops  —  Intel has officially announced its first 11th Gen Tiger Lake processors for laptops …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: TikTok sale talks have been complicated by China's new AI export restrictions, with parties unsure whether TikTok's algorithms can be included  —  Complexity of new Chinese export restrictions has reduced the chances of a sale occurring soon  —  Deal talks for TikTok's U.S. operations …
Donie O'Sullivan / CNN:
Facebook says, after an FBI tip, it took down several Pages and accounts pushing a fake left-wing news outlet made by people linked to Russian troll group IRA  —  New York (CNN Business)People associated with the infamous St. Petersburg troll group that was part of Russia's attempt to interfere …
Maria Armental / Wall Street Journal:
Patreon says it has raised $90M at a $1.2B+ pre-money valuation, nearly twice the $660M valuation it had prior to a funding round last year  —  New Enterprise Associates and Wellington Management led the $90 million funding round  —  Membership platform Patreon Inc., which enables musicians …
Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
Facebook updates its terms of service globally, effective Oct. 1, allowing it to block content amid proposed Australian law that would force it to pay for news  —  - Change will give Facebook powers to remove or block content  — Mark Zuckerberg has long publicly championed free speech
Apple:
Apple says the iOS app economy created 300,000 new US jobs since April 2019 and now supports 2.1M+ US jobs across all 50 states, up 15% YoY  —  App Store ecosystem now supports over 2.1 million jobs across all 50 states  —  The iOS app economy has created nearly 300,000 new jobs since April 2019 …
David Ingram / NBC News:
Twitter says it plans to add context to trending topics, including picking a “representative tweet” for trends, amid criticism that the feature amplifies hoaxes  —  Twitter announced Tuesday that it plans to make a series of small changes to its trending topics feature to try …
Nathan Munn / VICE:
Report: Canadian police are turning more to predictive policing algorithms, using tools like GeoDASH and Palantir's Gotham, raising civil liberty concerns  —  Police across Canada are increasingly adopting algorithmic technology to predict crime.  The authors of a new report say human rights are threatened by the practice.
Microsoft on the Issues:
Microsoft unveils new tools to identify deepfake videos and launches an interactive quiz at SpotDeepfakes.org to combat disinformation  —  Today, we're announcing two new technologies to combat disinformation, new work to help educate the public about the problem, and partnerships to help advance …
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
FBI officials describe how the agency changed its handling of hacks and revamped its process for warning victims, learning from the mistakes of 2016's DNC hack  —  Facing looming election threats and a ransomware epidemic, the bureau says it has revamped its process for warning hacking victims.
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Indonesia-based PasarPolis, an insurance marketplace aimed at those who have never purchased policies before, raises $54M Series B from LeapFrog and others  —  PasarPolis, the Indonesian-based startup focused on making insurance policies more accessible in Southeast Asia, has closed a Series B round totaling $54 million.

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Earlier Picks

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