Techmeme
August 19, 2020, 10:40 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Tim Wu / New York Times:
Janko Roettgers / Protocol:
Facebook says it will add native support for Zoom, Webex, BlueJeans, and GoToMeeting to Portal starting next month  —  Facebook is turning Portal into a Trojan horse for the enterprise: The smart display is getting native apps for Zoom, Webex, BlueJeans and GoToMeeting starting next month, the social media giant announced Wednesday.
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Oculus will soon require all of its VR headset users to sign up with a Facebook account, removing support for new separate Oculus accounts in October  —  Support for separate Oculus accounts will end in 2023  —  Oculus will soon require all of its virtual reality headset users to sign up with a Facebook account.
The Guardian:
Avaaz: sites spreading health misinfo had ~500M views on Facebook in April; top 10 such sites had almost four times the views of top 10 reputable health sites  —  Research findings undermine firm's claims it is cracking down on inaccurate news  —  Websites spreading misinformation …
New York Times:
Stocks of Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Facebook rose a combined 37% in the first seven months of 2020, while all the other S&P 500 stocks fell 6%  —  As the economy contracts and many companies struggle to survive, the biggest tech companies are amassing wealth and influence in ways unseen in decades.
Nick Romeo / New Yorker:
How Americans can draw upon European thinkers, like Dutch politician Marietje Schaake, to address issues of antitrust, Big Tech, and democratic governance  —  Last October, a couple of days before joining Stanford University as the international policy director at the Cyber Policy Center …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Google Maps says it's rolling out more detailed maps with improved street designs for SF, NYC, and London, and with more accurate natural features worldwide  —  Making natural features easier to see and streets easier to navigate  —  Google Maps is being redesigned to make it easier …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Report: a look at the narrowing regulatory exemptions Apple has been operating under in China, such as running an App Store without a local partner  —  Amid continued tension between the United States and China, a new report from The Information details how Apple could be impacted by Chinese retaliation.
Kris Holt / Engadget:
Google updates its activity cards feature to provide more personalized results for recipes, jobs, and shopping  —  Google is making its activity cards feature — which helps you pick up where you left off in Search on mobile — more useful.  Let's say you're looking for iPad accessories.
Steven T. Dennis / Bloomberg:
Senate Intelligence Committee concludes Putin ordered the 2016 hacking of Democratic Party accounts and the release of emails to harm Hillary Clinton's campaign  —  - Manafort described as a ‘grave counterintelligence threat’  — Report details plan to hurt Clinton, finds no Trump collusion
Issie Lapowsky / Protocol:
Profile of Color of Change, a civil rights group pushing Big Tech on issues of race has gone from 1.7M members in May to 8M today  —  It felt hot in Brandi Collins-Dexter's attic, but nerves may have had something to do with it.  —  It was late June, and she was sitting in front of her computer …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Google has expanded its Kormo Jobs app, first launched in Bangladesh in 2018 to help people find entry-level jobs, to India  —  Google said on Wednesday it has expanded its jobs app, called Kormo Jobs, to India as the Search giant looks to offer a helping hand to millions looking …
Matthew Handrahan / GamesIndustry.biz:
Take-Two Interactive has agreed to acquire NYC-based mobile game developer Playdots for $192M in cash and stock; Playdots had raised $10M Series A in 2014  —  New York-based studio's entire team will join Take-Two in cash and stock deal  —  Take-Two Interactive has acquired the mobile developer Playdots in a deal worth $192 million.
Debby Wu / Bloomberg:
Taiwan accused China-linked hackers of infiltrating Taiwanese companies that provide info services to government bodies, to steal citizens' personal data  —  - Groups likely backed by Beijing, cybersecurity official says  — Efforts to access systems have been ongoing for ‘long time’
More: Reuters

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
5 common accounting mistakes  —  This is a guest post by Yaali Bizappln Solutions.  A lot of businesses manage their customers and finances on separate platforms.  This disconnect often leads to missed invoices …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 11/21 - What The DOJ Wants Google To Do
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:40 AM ET, August 19, 2020.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Tsering D. Gurung / Rest of World:
The New Indian Express:

Earlier Picks

Matthew Smith / TIME:
Michael Simon / PCWorld: