Techmeme
January 16, 2020, 7:00 PM

Top News

Brad Smith / The Official Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft pledges to be carbon negative by 2030, remove all carbon it has ever emitted by 2050, and launch a $1B climate innovation fund  —  The scientific consensus is clear.  The world confronts an urgent carbon problem.  The carbon in our atmosphere has created a blanket of gas that traps heat and is changing the world's climate.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Facebook puts off its effort to build ads into WhatsApp as it focuses on B2C communications, but will sell ads in WhatsApp's Status at some point  —  Social-media giant scraps earlier strategy, seeks other ways to monetize messaging service used by 1.5 billion
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
NBC says Peacock will launch on July 15 and have a free tier with limited programming and two premium tiers, at $4.99/month with ads and $9.99/month with no ads  —  Comcast is introducing three different subscription tiers  —  NBCUniversal's streaming service, Peacock …
Joe Tidy / BBC:
Following a BBC investigation, Twitter apologizes for letting ads be micro-targeted using keywords like “transphobic”, “white supremacists”, and “anti-gay”  —  Twitter has apologised for allowing adverts to be micro-targeted at certain users such as neo-Nazis, homophobes and other hate groups.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
New report finds Twitch viewership dropped 9.8% in Q4 compared with Q3 after its top streamers left, YouTube Gaming Live hours watched increased 46% over 2019  —  The loss of several big-name streamers is finally taking its toll on Twitch, according to a new report from StreamLabs and Newzoo out today.
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Nancy Pelosi slams Facebook's “shameful” behaviour, saying it doesn't “care about truth” and schmoozes Trump's admin to avoid taxes and antitrust action  —  - During her weekly press briefing, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose district includes tech-heavy San Francisco …
New York Times:
Turkey lifted a two-and-a-half year ban on Wikipedia on Wednesday, restoring access after the country's top court ruled that blocking it was unconstitutional  —  The country's top court had ruled that the move was unconstitutional.  —  The Turkish government lifted a two-and-a-half-year ban …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Bose to close all 119 of its retail stores in N. America, Europe, Japan, and Australia due to the shift to online shopping but will maintain stores elsewhere  —  The move will result in hundreds of employees being laid off  —  Bose plans to close its entire retail store footprint in North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Alexis C. Madrigal / The Atlantic:
As tech becomes the dominant force in the modern economy, Silicon Valley's culture since 1970s of nimble startups successfully challenging incumbents is fading  —  For decades, whole regions, nations even, have tried to model themselves on a particular ideal of innovation, the lifeblood of the modern economy.
Yolanda Redrup / Australian Financial Review:
Australia-based hotel booking tech company SiteMinder raises A$100M at a valuation of A$1.1B, says it now has 35,000 hotels worldwide as clients  —  Hotel booking tech company SiteMinder has become the country's newest $1 billion tech unicorn, banking more than $100 million in capital …
Ryan Gallagher / Bloomberg:
How spyware from eSurv, which was helping police hack suspects' phones in Italy, was allegedly used by its employees to hack the phones of innocent Italians  —  After successfully creating a health care app for doctors to view medical records, Diego Fasano, an Italian entrepreneur …
Rachel Metz / CNN:
How the increasing use of AI to vet job applications is forcing career counselors at universities to prepare students on how to impress the AI algorithms  —  San Francisco (CNN)College career centers used to prepare students for job interviews by helping them learn how to dress appropriately or write a standout cover letter.

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More News

Adam Bluestein / Marker:
Tom Schmidt / Dragonfly Research:
Kim Hart / Axios:

Earlier Picks

Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Alan Boyle / GeekWire:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
James Vincent / The Verge:
Abner Li / 9to5Google: