Techmeme
August 5, 2020, 6:40 AM

Top News

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:
In a letter to staff, ByteDance founder and CEO Zhang Yiming says a forced sale of TikTok to a US buyer is “unreasonable” and the real goal of the US is a ban  —  - U.S. doesn't really want to see a sale to American buyers  — Founder Zhang Yiming issues second letter in two days
Dan Primack / Axios:
New York Times:
TechCrunch:
Anthony Levandowski, ex-Uber self-driving head, was sentenced to 18 months in prison as Levandowski files a new lawsuit against Waymo and Uber  —  Maverick self-driving car engineer will not need to report until threat of COVID-19 pandemic has passed  —  Anthony Levandowski …
Apple:
Greg Joswiak will replace Phil Schiller as SVP of Worldwide Marketing; Schiller becomes an Apple Fellow and will continue to lead the App Store and Apple Events  —  Greg Joswiak joins Apple executive team as senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing  —  Cupertino, California …
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
Google says Google Play Music shutdown starts this month, global streaming will shut down in October, and music collections will be deleted in December  —  August begins the four-month Google Music shutdown.  —  Google Play Music has been given the death sentence by Google …
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
Disney says Disney+ has grown to 60.5M subscribers, up from 54M in May, says it has 100M+ paid subs for streaming services including Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+  —  Disney+ had more than 60.5 million paying subscribers as of yesterday, according to The Walt Disney Company's CEO Bob Chapek.
Kate Clark / The Information:
HeadSpin to return ~$95M to investors and has replaced its CEO after an internal review of financial irregularities; its valuation now down from $1.16B to $250M  —  HeadSpin, a mobile app testing company recently valued at $1.16 billion, plans to return up to $95 million in funding to investors …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Apple refreshes 27" iMacs with 10th-gen Intel CPUs and a 1080p webcam, shipping this week, and makes SSDs standard across its iMac lineup  —  But the design remains the same  —  Apple is announcing updates for both the 27-inch and 21.5-inch iMacs.  It's updating the processors inside …
Bill Kisliuk / UCLA:
UCLA and Apple launch a study to see whether iPhones, Watches, and Beddit sleep monitors can help in understanding how daily routines impact depression symptoms  —  Researchers from the Depression Grand Challenge collaborate with Apple  —  Researchers from the Depression Grand Challenge collaborate with Apple
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google launches Nearby Share on Android, an AirDrop-style tool, rolling out to Pixel and Samsung devices; support for Chromebooks will arrive in coming months  —  It only took Google nine years to catch up to AirDrop  —  It will finally be slightly easier to share files, images, links, and other content between Android devices.
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
Profile of Mohamed Al-Sharifi, aka GamerDoc, a volunteer who has spent two years hunting cheaters in Overwatch and Valorant, getting ~50K-70K cheaters banned  —  This 24-year-old Iraqi who lives in London has spent two years hunting cheaters in Overwatch and Valorant, getting thousands …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
A hacker has posted a list of usernames, passwords, IP addresses and SSH keys of 900+ Pulse Secure VPN enterprise servers on a Russian-speaking hacker forum  —  EXCLUSIVE: The list has been shared on a Russian-speaking hacker forum frequented by multiple ransomware gangs.
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Analysis of the questions asked by Democrats and Republicans during the House antitrust hearing and what it reveals about their partisan priorities  —  The only thing more predictable than members of Congress using hearings to make statements instead of ask questions, and when they do ask questions …
Financial Times:
Chinese investments into India's tech startups are showing signs of drying up amid geopolitical tensions, opening the door to US investors to fill the void  —  As political tensions dominate India's relations with China, US companies see an opportunity  —  Just days after 20 Indian soldiers …
Jason Parham / Wired:
Interviews with 29 Black TikTok creators highlight issues of muted posts, in-app harassment, and incidents of racism, even as users lionize Black culture  —  On the app, users drape themselves in the trappings of Black culture—and steal the viral spotlight.  It's exploitation at its most refined and disturbing.

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More News

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Earlier Picks

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Tim Copeland / Decrypt:
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
European Commission:
Tom Warren / The Verge: