Techmeme
November 20, 2020, 5:45 PM

Top News

Reed Albergotti / Washington Post:
Congressional staffers say Apple is among companies trying to weaken a bill that would hold US companies accountable for using Uighur forced labor in China  —  Apple wants to water down key provisions of the bill, which would hold U.S. companies accountable for using Uighur forced labor, according to two congressional staffers
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft is enticing Zoom users to Teams with new free 24-hour meetings, allowing up to 300 people to join calls via the web without an account  —  Microsoft Teams is now free to use for 24-hour video calls all in a browser  —  Microsoft is making a big push to entice fans of Zoom …
Michael del Castillo / Forbes:
Crypto analytics startup Chainalysis raises $100M Series C led by Addition at a $1B valuation, says its revenue grew by around 96% over the past year  —  A new bitcoin unicorn is about to be born.  After days of rumors flying around the cryptocurrency industry, investigation firm Chainalysis …
Scott Stein / CNET:
Apple's AR execs on how iPhones and iPads are becoming world-mapping, object-scanning tools that are laying the groundwork for the arrival of AR headsets  —  Sometime in the not-too-distant future, Apple will reportedly unveil an augmented- or mixed-reality headset.  Apple hasn't discussed any headgear yet.
Wall Street Journal:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Snap has reportedly acquired Voisey, a UK startup that lets users create short music tracks and videos using their own voice overlayed on custom instrumentals  —  Snapchat helped pioneer the use of lenses on faces in photos and videos to turn ordinary picture messages into fantastical creations …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Trump admin is providing only limited cybersecurity assistance to Biden's transition team, which now relies on a standard, paid Google Workspace  —  The incoming administration is working remotely, operating on a standard, paid Google network  —  WASHINGTON—When it comes …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Google is testing Project Guideline, an AI-powered system that enables navigation guidance for low-vision people, allowing them to run races by themselves  —  In collaboration with nonprofit organization Guiding Eyes for the Blind, Google today piloted an AI system called Project Guideline …
Bloomberg:
Facebook responds to Apple's defense of IDFA, saying Apple is using its “dominant market position to self-preference their own data collection”  —  Apple Inc. on Thursday slammed Facebook Inc. and other internet giants for their ad-targeting practices in response to a letter questioning …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Jeff John Roberts / Fortune:
Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt steps down as co-CEO, leaving Vlad Tenev as sole CEO ahead of a rumored IPO  —  Robinhood, creator of the popular stock-trading app of the same name, announced on Friday that Vlad Tenev will be the company's sole chief executive, ending an arrangement …
Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
Stackline, an online retail intelligence and management startup with clients like Sony, Levi's, and Starbucks, raises $50M Series A from Goldman Sachs  —  Stackline raised $50 million from Goldman Sachs Growth Equity to fuel its online retail intelligence platform as the e-commerce industry grows rapidly amid the pandemic.
Frank Konkel / Nextgov:
The CIA awards its Commercial Cloud Enterprise contract to AWS, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and IBM; the project's expected value is in the “tens of billions”  —  The agency has awarded a contract to bring foundational cloud services from multiple cloud service providers into the intelligence community.
More: C4ISRNET and FedScoop
James Pearson / Reuters:
Source: Vietnam has threatened to shut down Facebook inside the country if it does not censor more “anti-state” posts on the platform  —  HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam has threatened to shut down Facebook in the country if it does not bow to government pressure to censor …

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More News

Michal Lev-Ram / Fortune:
Tom Simonite / Wired:
Dan Primack / Axios:
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:

Earlier Picks

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