Techmeme
July 31, 2020, 8:30 PM

Top News

New York Times:
Sources: Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok  —  The talks come as TikTok's ownership by a Chinese company is under scrutiny by the White House and lawmakers.  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok, the Chinese-owned video app, according to a person with knowledge …
Bloomberg:
Sources: President Trump plans to sign an order directing China's ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok  —  President Donald Trump plans to sign an order to direct China's ByteDance Ltd.'s to divest its ownership of the popular U.S.-based music-video app TikTok, according to people familiar …
Ryan Hughes / WFLA-TV:
A Florida state attorney files 30 felony charges against a 17-year old arrested in Tampa, in connection with the July 15 Twitter hack  —  TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) - A Tampa teenager is in jail, accused of being the “mastermind” behind a hack on the social media website Twitter that caused limited access …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
In an update to the July 15 hack, Twitter says a few employees were targeted in a phone spear phishing attack, and it had since limited access to internal tools  —  ‘This attack relied on a significant and concerted attempt to mislead certain employees’  —  Twitter provided an update …
Joseph Cox / VICE:
DOJ announces charges against two other suspects in the Twitter hack, including a 19-year-old in UK and a 22-year-old in Orlando, Florida  —  The arrest comes after hackers hijacked some of the most high profile accounts on the social network by leveraging an internal Twitter tool.  —  Joseph Cox
Financial Times:
Sources: Nvidia in talks to buy Arm in a cash-and-stock deal that would value it at more than the $32B SoftBank paid to buy the UK chip designer in 2016  —  US chipmaker seeks cash-and-stock purchase of UK chip designer from its Japanese owner  —  US chip company Nvidia is in talks to buy …
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft to end support for all third-party Cortana skills on September 7 and drop support for the dedicated Cortana apps on iOS and Android in early 2021  —  Microsoft is continuing to focus its Cortana digital assistant on productivity scenarios by phasing out Cortana Skills starting …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Facebook confirms it will begin rolling out official music videos across its platform in the US, and introduce a new Music destination within Facebook Watch  —  Facebook today confirmed it will begin rolling out official music videos across its platform in the U.S., as TechCrunch first reported …
Jessica Bursztynsky / CNBC:
Apple surpasses Saudi Aramco to become the world's most valuable company after its shares closed up 10.47%, giving it a market valuation of $1.84T  —  - Apple is now the world's most valuable company.  — It surpassed Saudi Aramco.  — Apple's strong fiscal third quarter earnings, released Thursday, boosted its stock.
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
Netflix is rolling out playback speed controls of up to 0.5x slower or 1.5x faster on Android devices and is set to begin testing the option for iOS  —  Stream up to 0.5 times slower or 1.5 times faster  —  Netflix is letting people choose the speed at which they want to watch something …
Kim Lyons / The Verge:
YouTube plans to discontinue its community captions feature on September 28 due to lack of use and spam abuse; critics contend it will stifle accessibility  —  The feature, which YouTube says was underutilized, will be discontinued in September  —  YouTube plans to discontinue …
Caitlin Dewey / OneZero :
A look at the “hustle economy”, where unemployed teachers, cooks, and dancers are turning to Patreon, Twitch, and OnlyFans to monetize their digital offerings  —  Unemployed teachers, cooks, dancers are turning to Patreon, Twitch, and OnlyFans  —  e have nothing to sell besides physical touch.
Dave Burke / The Keyword:
Google updates its Exposure Notification API with interoperability between countries, ability for apps to work without turning on location in Android 11, more  —  In May, we partnered with Apple to launch the Exposure Notifications System (ENS) and made it available to public health authorities around …

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