Techmeme
November 19, 2020, 7:55 PM

Top News

Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google says it has completed a global rollout of RCS and will start testing end-to-end encryption in Android Messages  —  In mid-2019, Google decided to take over and speed up the launch of RCS.  A little over 17 months later, Google announced today that it has completed a global rollout of RCS …
Dan Primack / Axios:
Roblox files S-1 for its IPO, reports losses of $206M on $589M in revenue, 31.1M DAU, and 22.2B engaged hours, up 122% YoY, for the first nine months of 2020  —  Roblox, a Silicon Valley-based based social gaming platform for tweens and teens, on Thursday filed for a $1 billion initial public offering.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming service launches in beta on iOS as a web app, bypassing Apple's App Store and letting iOS users play Fortnite  —  Nvidia joins Microsoft in bypassing Apple's App Store  —  Nvidia is joining its fellow cloud gaming providers in choosing to bypass Apple's App Store …
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Sources: state and federal investigators are preparing to bring antitrust charges against Facebook for buying rivals Instagram and WhatsApp  —  State and federal investigators are preparing to bring antitrust charges against Facebook that will challenge the tech giant's acquisition of two rivals …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Facebook's Q3 transparency report: 0.1%-0.11% of what users see violates hate speech rules; 95% of hate speech takedowns are proactive, up from 24% in 2017  —  Lawmakers and moderators criticized its policies this week  —  Facebook says it is proactively detecting more hate speech using artificial intelligence.
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
The M1 Macs are astonishingly good and Rosetta is the exemplification of “it just works”, but the iOS app experience ranges from terrible to OK, at best  —  Better necessarily implies different.  —  That's one of my favorite axioms.  It's both intuitively and undeniably true.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple defends its delayed IDFA changes in iOS 14 and slams Facebook, saying “its intent is to collect as much data as possible” on its users  —  Last month, a coalition of eight civil and human rights organizations penned an open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook regarding …
Wall Street Journal:
BuzzFeed has agreed to acquire Verizon Media's HuffPost in a stock deal, as part of a larger agreement to syndicate content on each others' platforms  —  New-media companies have been exploring mergers as they try to jumpstart growth  —  BuzzFeed Inc. has agreed to acquire Verizon Media's HuffPost …
Sheera Frenkel / New York Times:
Report: election misinfo often evaded YouTube's efforts to stop it, as videos supporting false voter fraud claims were viewed 138M+ times during election week  —  YouTube videos endorsing the false idea that there was widespread election fraud were viewed more than 138 million times on the week of Nov. 3 …
Sebastiaan de With / Halide:
iPhone 12 Pro Max's camera achieves images of quality previously only seen in dedicated cameras that have sensors four times its size  —  At Halide HQ, we've been busily working away on a very deep, technical analysis of what's new in iPhone 12 cameras this year.  All four of 'em.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
The second-gen version of Echo Frames, Amazon's Alexa-enabled glasses that debuted last year for some customers, will be available generally on Dec. 10 for $250  —  - Amazon on Thursday said it's making the Echo Frames available to the general public, after launching the device last year …
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Fitbit rolls out OS 5.1 for Sense and Versa 3 smartwatches, with Google Assistant, voice-to-text, phone calls, and automatic blood oxygen readings  —  The latest Fitbit smartwatches offer a lot more when it comes to hardware, but on the software, they shipped a few of those features without taking full advantage of them.
Damien Wilde / 9to5Google:
Google says Stadia is coming to iOS as a Safari PWA within “several weeks”  —  Apple's tough enforcement of its App Store policies has led to a sad lack of a playable version of Google Stadia on iOS.  That is set to change very soon as public testing of a dedicated progressive web app …
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Go SMS Pro, an Android messaging app with 100M+ installs, is exposing photos, videos, and other files sent privately by its users  —  Go SMS Pro, one of the most popular messaging apps for Android, is exposing photos, videos and other files sent privately by its users.  Worse, the app maker has done nothing to fix the bug.
Adrianne Jeffries / The Markup:
Google says it will end preferential search rankings for AMP pages in the spring, but remains “fully committed” to the technology  —  Targeting Trump Fans, QAnon Ad Slips Through Facebook's Filters  —  How Private Is My Pay App?
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Facebook's bug bounty program, now in its 10th year, paid out $1.98M in 2020 so far, on over 1,000 submissions  —  The vulnerability was found through the company's bug bounty program, now in its tenth year.  —  IT'S BEEN ALMOST a decade since Facebook started offering researchers cash rewards …
Tom Simonite / Wired:
Research renews concerns about gender bias in image recognition services offered by Google, Microsoft, and Amazon  —  A new paper renews concerns about bias in image recognition services offered by Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.  —  MEN OFTEN JUDGE women by their appearance.  Turns out, computers do too.
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
YouTube says channels of all sizes may now see ads on them, though only creators big enough to qualify for its Partner Program will be paid any ad revenue  —  The company is rolling it out on a ‘limited number of videos’  —  Starting today, YouTube will begin running ads on some creators' videos …
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch:
California regulator will allow companies to offer commercial autonomous ride-hailing service pending state approval, which may take 2+ years for deployment  —  Companies that launch robotaxi services in California will be able to charge for and offer shared driverless rides as long …

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