Techmeme
October 6, 2020, 3:00 PM

Top News

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google rebrands G Suite as Google Workspace, integrates Meet, Chat, and Rooms across all its applications, and introduces new logos for all apps in the suite  —  Google is rebranding G Suite, its set of online productivity and collaboration tools for businesses that include the likes of Gmail, Drive, Docs and Meet.
BBC:
Facebook removed a post by Trump saying COVID-19 is “less lethal” than flu, only the second time it has done so, as Twitter hides the tweet and adds a warning  —  Facebook has deleted a post in which President Trump had claimed Covid-19 was “less lethal” than the flu.
New York Times:
Sources: US House report investigating Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook's power has been delayed as Democrats and Republicans are split on the remedies  —  WASHINGTON — For all the divisions in Washington, one issue that had united Republicans and Democrats in recent years was their animus toward …
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Security flaw meant Qiui's Cellmate chastity device for men could be remotely locked by hackers; the flaw was disclosed after company missed deadlines to patch  —  Just because almost every gadget or appliance can be connected to the internet, doesn't mean they should be.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple announces it will hold an event on October 13 at 10am PDT, where it's expected to unveil new 5G iPhones; invites are titled “Hi, Speed.”  —  Apple today has officially announced its highly-anticipated iPhone 12 event for October 13 at 10 am PT. Much like WWDC 2020 …
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Instagram marks its 10th anniversary by expanding in-app warnings when users post nasty comments and adds a private map of stories from the last three years  —  Instagram is officially 10 years old, and is marking the end of its first decade with new features meant to encourage users to be nice to one another.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google adds a Stories feature to its Google iOS and Android app, a carousel focusing on publisher content that can include audio, full-screen video, and photos  —  Google announced today it's introducing a Stories feature to its Google app for iOS and Android, which now reaches over 800 million people per month.
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
The UK's Financial Conduct Authority has banned the sale of cryptocurrency derivatives and exchange-traded notes to retail users from January 6, 2021  —  More than 12,500 users participated in the first phase of a public token sale on CoinList for Flow, a new blockchain platform developed by Dapper Labs, the creator of CryptoKitties.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple removed headphones and speakers from Bose, Logitech, and Sonos from its online store at the end of September and asked retail employees to do the same  —  - Apple is working on first over-ear headphones, smaller HomePod  — Products from Sonos, Bose, Logitech pulled from online store
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
As AT&T stops connecting new DSL users, a new report co-written by an AT&T workers union says only 28% of AT&T territory has fiber-to-the-home internet  —  AT&T stops connecting new DSL users; only 28% of AT&T territory has full fiber.  —  AT&T has deployed fiber-to-the-home Internet …
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Google launches Chrome 86 with stronger password protections on iOS and Android, VP9 video codec for macOS Big Sur, a slew of new developer features, and more  —  Google today launched Chrome 86 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS.  Chrome 86 brings password protections for Android and iOS …
Bloomberg:
Health insurance startup Clover Health, which uses health and behavioral data to lower costs, agrees to go public via Social Capital's SPAC at a $3.7B valuation  —  - Deal values the health-insurance startup at $3.7 billion  — ‘We need companies like Clover,’ Social Capital III CEO says
Danny Nelson / CoinDesk:
John McAfee has been arrested in Spain for tax evasion after SEC sues him for allegedly promoting ICOs in 2017, 2018 without disclosing he was paid to do so  —  John McAfee, the 74-year-old software magnate-turned-crypto-bull, has been arrested in Spain on allegations of tax evasion, according to the Department of Justice.
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
Remotion, a workplace video service for short chats, raises $13M across seed and Series A; its Mac app is live in beta with a waitlist for Windows and Linux  —  One of the broader trends of the pandemic has been the unbundling of Zoom with startups pulling out a feature or two and designing …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Researcher says that Macs with T2 chips are vulnerable to a variant of the checkm8 exploit, which could jailbreak certain iPhones and was unpatchable  —  Jailbreak involves combining last year's checkm8 exploit with the Blackbird vulnerability disclosed this August.
Liam Frost / Decrypt:
China says the People's Bank of China has processed 3M+ transactions in digital yuan, worth ~$162M, as part of its digital currency pilot  —  The People's Bank of China (PBoC) has processed over three million transactions—worth 1.1 billion yuan ($162 million) as part of its trial of the DCEP …
Joseph Cox / VICE:
After two senators' inquiry into warrantless tracking by the IRS, the agency is being investigated for its use of location info from data brokers  —  The IRS used smartphone location data from a contractor to try and track Americans without a warrant.  —  Joseph Cox
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Microsoft says Iranian state-sponsored hackers are actively exploiting Zerologon, a Windows vulnerability in the Netlogon protocol  —  Microsoft links back the attacks to an Iranian hacker group known as Mercury, or MuddyWater.  —  Microsoft said on Monday that Iranian state-sponsored hackers …
Martin Giles / Forbes:
Unqork, a “no-code” enterprise app development service, raises $207M C round led by BlackRock at a valuation of $2B  —  When Gary Hoberman founded Unqork in 2017 after standing down as CIO of giant insurer MetLife, he had a frustrating time trying to get venture capitalists …

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Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Allison Levitsky / Silicon Valley Business Journal:
Financial Times:
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: