Techmeme
September 15, 2020, 1:55 AM

Top News

BuzzFeed News:
Internal memo from a fired Facebook data scientist shows how large amounts of inauthentic bot activity has boosted many countries' leaders and FB is slow to act  —  Facebook ignored or was slow to act on evidence that fake accounts on its platform have been undermining elections …
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Oracle confirms it is part of a proposal submitted by ByteDance to the US Treasury to become TikTok's “trusted technology provider”  —  - Oracle and TikTok share an interest in marketing, but while Oracle pursues business from big companies, TikTok aims for a wide scale among consumers.
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
In an open letter to CFIUS, Senator Josh Hawley says US should reject Oracle-ByteDance collaboration citing national security grounds, calls for a full sale  —  The deal is ‘completely unacceptable,’ Hawley says  —  Sen. Josh Hawley is publicly calling on the Treasury Department …
Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Kuo: the 5.4" iPhone 12 will feature a narrower notch but none of the iPhone 12 models will have a 120hz display; iPad Air will feature Touch ID in side button  —  Ahead of tomorrow's Apple event, reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is out with a new investor note highlighting his expectations for the remainder of 2020.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources detail Apple's Tuesday event: Apple Watch Series 6 with faster CPU and blood oxygen meter, new mid-tier iPad Air, and no new iPhones  —  - Company to debut new Apple Watches and iPad Air on Tuesday  — Smaller HomePod, headphones in the works; iPhones coming later
Bloomberg:
Sources: Sony has cut PS5 production for this fiscal year by 4M units to ~11M, following production issues with its custom-designed SOC for the new console  —  - Low yields of company's custom-designed silicon a bottleneck  — Sony facing aggressive pricing from Microsoft's Xbox team
Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire:
After retrieving a submerged shipping-container-size data center from Scotland's Orkney Islands, deployed in 2018, Microsoft says the project was a success  —  Two years after deploying a shipping-container-size data center to the depths off Scotland's Orkney Islands, Microsoft has reeled it back in …
BBC:
Google says its carbon footprint is now zero, after becoming carbon neutral in 2007, and aims to run all data centers and offices on carbon-free energy by 2030  —  Google says it has wiped out its entire carbon footprint by investing in “high-quality carbon offsets”.
Chris Jaffe / YouTube Blog:
YouTube says it is launching an early beta of YouTube Shorts, a 15-second video feature, in India  —  - By Chris Jaffe VP of Product Management Sep.14.2020 … YouTube has always been a place to be entertained — from your favorite dance trends, like Evolution of Dance, Roller Skate Dances …
Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
Facebook paid $367.6M to buy a 400K square foot complex from REI in Bellevue, WA, expanding its 3M square feet office space footprint in Seattle  —  Facebook is yet again expanding in the Seattle region, its largest engineering hub outside of Silicon Valley.
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
In an updated S-1 filing, Snowflake raises its expected IPO price by around 30% which would value the company between $27.7B-$30.5B compared to $20.9B-$23.7B  —  - Snowflake raised its estimated IPO price by around 30% in a new S-1 filing Monday.  — Snowflake now expects to IPO …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Low-code database service Airtable raises $185M Series D at $2.58B post-money valuation and launches Airtable Apps, a JavaScript-based no-code development tool  —  The spreadsheet-centric database and no-code platform Airtable today announced that it has raised a $185 million Series D funding round …
Rick Smith / WRAL TechWire:
US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission finds that IBM discriminated against older workers when making thousands of layoffs between 2013 and 2018  —  RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK - Tech giant IBM discriminated against older workers when making thousands of layoffs between 2013 and 2018 …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Facebook introduces Watch Together for Messenger, letting up to eight people in a mobile chat or 50 people in a Room watch videos together  —  Facebook today is rolling out a new feature that will allow friends and family to watch videos together over Messenger.

Sponsor Posts

TELUS Digital:
See how your customer experience priorities compare  —  TELUS Digital surveyed leaders about the tech they're investing in, the KPIs they're tracking and their plans for outsourcing.  Get the results.  No form fill required!
Intel:
Intel Delivers powerful CPUs for AI and Networking  —  With the onset of AI, businesses demand powerful and efficient CPUs.  Explore new Intel Xeon 6 processors, for the broadest set of workloads with leadership performance and lower TCO.
Zoho:
Zoho Sign at Kenya's Digital Trust Forum 2025 organized by Evrotrust and Geda  —  Kenyan businesses and government services are adapting to digital alternatives to explore opportunities in the nation's newly launched ten-year Digital Master Plan.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

BG2 Pod:
Liberation Day, Tariffs, US v China Open Source, OpenAI Fundraise, $CRWV, TikTok
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Techmeme Ride Home:
How Tariffs Might Impact Tech
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
What AI anime memes tell us about the future of art and humanity
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Great Chat:
Battle of the startup cities
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Zach Weinberg (Co-Founder & CEO, Curie.Bio) on The Tariff Trap, Self-Inflicted Recession Risk, and Open AI's Fundraise
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Trump vs The Media, Round 2, with Sara Fischer
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:55 AM ET, September 15, 2020.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Jon Porter / The Verge:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Chris Welch / The Verge: