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November 20, 2020, 8:00 PM
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Top News

Reed Albergotti / Washington Post:
Congressional staffers say Apple is among companies trying to weaken a bill that would hold US companies accountable for using Uighur forced labor in China  —  Apple wants to water down key provisions of the bill, which would hold U.S. companies accountable for using Uighur forced labor, according to two congressional staffers
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Trump admin is providing only limited cybersecurity assistance to Biden's transition team, which now relies on a standard, paid Google Workspace  —  The incoming administration is working remotely, operating on a standard, paid Google network  —  WASHINGTON—When it comes …
Nancy Scola / Politico:
Twitter says it will automatically transfer @POTUS to Joe Biden the moment he's swore in, transition other accounts including @whitehouse, @FLOTUS, and @VP
TechCrunch:
a16z closes two new funds totaling $4.5B, focused on early and later-stage investments, bringing total assets under management to $16.5B  —  Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has closed a pair of funds totaling $4.5 billion, the firm confirmed in a blog post this morning.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft is enticing Zoom users to Teams with new free 24-hour meetings, allowing up to 300 people to join calls via the web without an account  —  Microsoft Teams is now free to use for 24-hour video calls all in a browser  —  Microsoft is making a big push to entice fans of Zoom …
Michael del Castillo / Forbes:
Crypto analytics startup Chainalysis raises $100M Series C led by Addition at a $1B valuation, says its revenue grew by around 96% over the past year  —  A new bitcoin unicorn is about to be born.  After days of rumors flying around the cryptocurrency industry, investigation firm Chainalysis …
Scott Stein / CNET:
Apple's AR execs on how iPhones and iPads are becoming world-mapping, object-scanning tools that are laying the groundwork for the arrival of AR headsets  —  Sometime in the not-too-distant future, Apple will reportedly unveil an augmented- or mixed-reality headset.  Apple hasn't discussed any headgear yet.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Airbnb's “chief trust officer” resigned in 2019 over concerns about Airbnb's data sharing with Chinese authorities, who wanted more “real-time data”  —  Company says it declined to disclose more details with China and is transparent with users …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Snap has reportedly acquired Voisey, a UK startup that lets users create short music tracks and videos using their own voice overlayed on custom instrumentals  —  Snapchat helped pioneer the use of lenses on faces in photos and videos to turn ordinary picture messages into fantastical creations …
BBC:
YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter say they will join forces with fact-checkers, governments, and researchers to tackle COVID-19 vaccine conspiracies from January  —  Three of the largest social networks have said they will join forces with fact-checkers, governments and researchers to try to come …
Samuel Axon / Ars Technica:
Craig Federighi, Johny Srouji, and Greg Joswiak on how Apple designed M1, the importance of UMA, non-linear increase in performance at higher power levels, more  —  Craig Federighi, Johny Srouji, and Greg Joswiak tell us the Apple Silicon story.  —  Some time ago, in an Apple campus building, a group of engineers got together.
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
The M1 Macs are astonishingly good and Rosetta is the exemplification of “it just works”, but the iOS app experience ranges from terrible to OK, at best
Peter Guest / Rest of World:
Facebook created country-specific community standards for the first time ahead of Myanmar's general election, and seemingly reduced hate speech and misinfo  —  Accused of enabling genocide, the social media giant has temporarily changed its rules in Myanmar to prevent abuse and misinformation.
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Facebook's Q3 transparency report: 0.1%-0.11% of what users see violates hate speech rules; 95% of hate speech takedowns are proactive, up from 24% in 2017
Jeff John Roberts / Fortune:
Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt steps down as co-CEO, leaving Vlad Tenev as sole CEO ahead of a rumored IPO  —  Robinhood, creator of the popular stock-trading app of the same name, announced on Friday that Vlad Tenev will be the company's sole chief executive, ending an arrangement …
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Google is testing Project Guideline, an AI-powered system that enables navigation guidance for low-vision people, allowing them to run races by themselves  —  In collaboration with nonprofit organization Guiding Eyes for the Blind, Google today piloted an AI system called Project Guideline …
Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Sources: Amazon agrees to pull HBO from Fire TV's Amazon Channels next year; WarnerMedia wanted HBO out to maintain a direct relationship with users via its app  —  - Amazon has agreed to pull HBO from Amazon Channels in the Amazon Fire TV interface when that agreement lapses next year, sources say.
Bloomberg:
Facebook responds to Apple's defense of IDFA, saying Apple is using its “dominant market position to self-preference their own data collection”  —  Apple Inc. on Thursday slammed Facebook Inc. and other internet giants for their ad-targeting practices in response to a letter questioning …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple defends its delayed IDFA changes in iOS 14 and slams Facebook, saying “its intent is to collect as much data as possible” on its users

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About This Page

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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.

From Mediagazer

New York Times:
In a memo, 60 Minutes EP Bill Owens says he is resigning because he had lost his journalistic independence; the show is under pressure from Trump and Paramount

Dietrich Knauth / Reuters:
A US judge orders the Trump administration to “take all necessary steps” to reinstate employees and resume broadcasts of VOA and other government-funded radio

Luc Cohen / Reuters:
A federal jury finds The New York Times not liable in the retrial of Sarah Palin's defamation case over a 2017 editorial about gun control

More News

James Pearson / Reuters:
Source: Vietnam has threatened to shut down Facebook inside the country if it does not censor more “anti-state” posts on the platform
Michal Lev-Ram / Fortune:
Apple announces Barbara Whye as its new head of inclusion and diversity starting in early 2021; Whye will arrive from a similar role at Intel

Earlier Picks

Dan Primack / Axios:
Roblox files S-1 for its IPO, reports losses of $206M on $589M in revenue, 31.1M DAU, and 22.2B engaged hours, up 122% YoY, for the first nine months of 2020
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Facebook's bug bounty program, now in its 10th year, paid out $1.98M in 2020 so far, on over 1,000 submissions
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Go SMS Pro, an Android messaging app with 100M+ installs, is exposing photos, videos, and other files sent privately by its users
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Fitbit rolls out OS 5.1 for Sense and Versa 3 smartwatches, with Google Assistant, voice-to-text, phone calls, and automatic blood oxygen readings
Damien Wilde / 9to5Google:
Google says Stadia is coming to iOS as a Safari PWA within “several weeks”
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google says it has completed a global rollout of RCS and will start testing end-to-end encryption in Android Messages
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