Techmeme
December 1, 2020, 10:05 AM

Top News

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Amazon launches EC2 Mac instances bringing the Intel-based Mac mini to its cloud for $1.083 per hour billed by the second  —  AWS today opened its re:Invent conference with a surprise announcement: the company is bringing the Mac mini to its cloud.  These new EC2 Mac instances, as AWS calls them, are now available in preview.
Eric Geller / Politico:
SCOTUS worries about CFAA's sweeping nature, with Justice Gorsuch saying that the US government's view of the law risks “making a federal criminal of us all”  —  The Supreme Court on Monday indicated serious reservations about the ambiguity and scope of the nation's only major cybercrime law …
Jim Waterson / The Guardian:
Facebook to launch Facebook News in the UK in Jan. 2021, says it will pay publishers for news not already on its platform; most big UK publishers have signed up  —  Facebook is to pay mainstream UK news outlets millions of pounds a year to license their articles, as the social network faces …
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Ajit Pai, the Trump-appointed Republican chairman of the FCC, announces he will leave the agency on Jan. 20, when president-elect Joe Biden is sworn into office  —  Aji Pai, the Trump-appointed Republican chairman of the FCC, announced that he will leave the agency on Jan. 20, 2021, when president-elect Joe Biden is sworn into office.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Databand, a developer of AI-based observability software for data pipelines, raises $14.5M Series A led by Accel. bringing its total raised to ~$18.5M  —  DevOps continues to get a lot of attention as a wave of companies develop more sophisticated tools to help developers manage increasingly complex architectures and workloads.
More: FinSMEs and Geektime
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple hires Josh Elman, former VC at Greylock Partners and ex-VP of product at Robinhood, to work on app discovery at the App Store  —  Apple Inc. hired Josh Elman, a former venture capitalist at Greylock Partners who led early investments in Discord and the precursor to TikTok, to work on the App Store.
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Facebook says it has agreed to acquire Kustomer, which specializes in customer service tools and chatbots, reportedly for $1B+  —  Facebook Inc. has acquired Kustomer Inc., a New York-based software company that helps businesses manage customer conversations from multiple services on one dashboard.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
GoSite, which helps small and medium enterprises build websites and run other business functions online, raises $40M Series B led by Left Lane Capital  —  There are 12 million small and medium businesses in the US, yet they have continued to be one of most underserved segments of the B2B universe …
Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
Flexe, which operates a marketplace to buy warehousing space on demand, raises $70M Series C led by T. Rowe Price, bringing its total raised to $134M  —  Flexe is raising more capital ahead of schedule as the pandemic-driven e-commerce boom spurs faster-than-expected growth for its warehousing technology platform.
More: VentureBeat and FinSMEs
Ana Swanson / New York Times:
Sources: Apple suggested edits to a draft of Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, extending some deadlines, limiting release of some info to the public, and more  —  Business groups and major companies like Apple have been pressing Congress to alter legislation cracking down on imports of goods …
Cade Metz / New York Times:
Alphabet's DeepMind says it has solved the key “protein folding problem”, cutting the job down from months to hours, which could speed up drug discovery  —  Researchers at DeepMind say they have solved “the protein folding problem,” a task that has bedeviled scientists for more than 50 years.

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Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Surojit Chatterjee / The Coinbase Blog:
Nathaniel Popper / New York Times:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Tim Hardwick / MacRumors:
Scott Pelley / CBS News: