Techmeme
January 17, 2020, 8:50 AM

Top News

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
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.
#PayUp:
DoorDash pay data analysis: the average contractor earns $1.45/hour, nearly 33% of jobs pay less than $0 after expenses, and only 11% pay more than minimum wage  —  Food delivery app DoorDash has grown rapidly into the national industry leader, serving all 50 states and outpacing GrubHub …
Sean Endicott / Windows Central:
Microsoft partners with T-Mobile to provide 4G SIM cards to students in underserved areas, announces 14 Windows 10 PCs, some cell-connected, starting from $219  —  Microsoft announces partnership and new features to improve education.  —  What you need to know
Alex Hern / The Guardian:
Study finds the worlds' biggest brands, including Samsung and L'Oreal, are unknowingly running ads inside climate misinformation videos on YouTube  —  Avaaz says firms are unaware commercials being played alongside misleading videos  —  Some of the biggest companies in the world …
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 …
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.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
FBI: nation-state hackers breached the networks of two US municipalities last year, targeting a Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability that was patched in February  —  The SharePoint CVE-2019-0604 vulnerability has been one of the most targeted security flaw  —  Nation-state hackers have breached …
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:

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Ryan Gallagher / Bloomberg:
Chris Welch / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

New York Times:
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Alan Boyle / GeekWire:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: