Techmeme
January 1, 2020, 2:35 PM

Top News

ProPublica:
IRS amends its deal with tax prep software firms, now barred from hiding free products from search, and ends its ban on making its own online filing system  —  Finding free online tax filing should be easier this year for millions of Americans.  —  The IRS announced significant changes Monday …
Fred Wilson / AVC:
Big trends and takeaways from the 2010s: the “capital as a moat” model has failed, machine learning has become table stakes for tech companies, and more  —  My friend Steve Kane suggested I take a longer view in my pair of year end posts this year: … And so I will.
Fox Business:
WSJ: Cloud Hopper, a hacking campaign by Chinese state-sponsored group APT10, was larger than formerly known, and may have been active as late as November 2019  —  The hackers seemed to be everywhere.  —  In one of the largest-ever corporate espionage efforts, cyberattackers alleged …
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Trump signs TRACED Act into law to increase robocall fines, extend statute of limitations from 1 to 4 years, and require carriers to deploy STIR/SHAKEN protocol  —  The Pallone-Thrune TRACED Act, a bipartisan bit of legislation that should make life harder for the villains behind robocalls, was signed into law today by the president.
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
ProtonMail launches E2E encrypted calendar app ProtonCalendar in public beta, tied to users' paid ProtonMail accounts, encrypting event info and participants  —  Encrypted email provider ProtonMail has officially launched its new calendar in public beta.  The move is part of the Swiss …
Brenda Goh / Reuters:
Huawei's Rotating Chairman Eric Xu estimates the company's 2019 revenue grew 18% YoY to $122B, says it shipped 240M smartphones, but forecasts “difficult” 2020  —  SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Huawei Technologies on Tuesday said its full-year revenue would likely jump 18% in 2019 to 850 billion yuan …
Bloomberg:
Uber, Postmates sue CA to block AB-5, days ahead of bill taking effect, say law unconstitutionally targets gig economy companies and benefits other industries  —  - Companies call labor rights measure unfair, unconstitutional  — A.B. 5 will qualify many contractors for employment benefits
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Microsoft wins court order to seize 50 domains run by North Korean cyber-espionage group Thallium, the fourth APT Microsoft has combated with this tactic  —  Microsoft takes control of 50 domains operated by Thallium (APT37), a North Korean cyber-espionage group.
Toby Sterling / Reuters:
2018 tax filings: Alphabet will no longer use the IP licensing scheme commonly called the “Double Irish, Dutch sandwich”, which had let it delay paying US taxes  —  AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Alphabet (GOOGL.O), the parent company of Google, will no longer use the intellectual property …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Sonos should rethink its Trade Up program's “Recycle Mode”, which bricks old Sonos devices for a discount on newer ones, and consider a policy of reuse  —  An irreversible kill switch for a discount is a bad deal for the environment  —  Late last week, Sonos was called …
Harry McCracken / Fast Company:
Twitter execs including VP of Product Kayvon Beykpour talk about their focus on Lists and Topics, which help new users find tweets relevant to their interests  —  The service now lets you follow subjects you love—from anime to archaeology—and is upgrading its long-dormant lists feature.

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