Techmeme
December 16, 2020, 9:45 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Facebook attacks Apple in full-page newspaper ads, claiming upcoming iOS 14 changes that limit data gathering and targeted ads are bad for small businesses  —  - Ads criticize Apple's plan to require opt-in for ad tracking  — Facebook placed ads in the NYT, WSJ and Washington Post
Wall Street Journal:
Facebook says it will assist Epic Games in its legal battle against Apple, including providing supporting documents  —  Social-networking company also dials up criticism of Apple's plan to allow iPhone users to restrict access to personal data  —  Facebook Inc. said it would assist …
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Apple responds to Facebook's criticism of iOS 14 privacy measures, says Facebook won't be forced to change how it tracks users, but it must give users a choice  —  Apple has responded to Facebook's criticism over an upcoming iOS 14 privacy measure — specifically a change that will require users …
Axios:
Texas AG says the state and nine others have filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming Google illegally hurt competition in the ad tech market  —  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Wednesday that he's leading a multi-state lawsuit against Google, accusing the search giant …
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Twitter says it will start removing tweets that spread harmful COVID-19 vaccine misinformation starting next week and will label conspiracies starting in 2021  —  It may apply labels early in 2021  —  Twitter announced Wednesday that it will remove tweets making false or misleading claims about COVID-19 vaccinations.
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Substack launches Substack Reader, an RSS reader for tracking newsletter subscriptions and other feeds, in beta  —  Substack Reader is now available in beta  —  If you're worried about all your newsletter subscriptions getting lost in your inbox, Substack may have a solution.
Jacob Cohen Donnelly / A Media Operator:
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Google says its new Chromecast with Google TV will get an Apple TV app in early 2021, giving users access to TV+ originals and iTunes purchases  —  Coming in early 2021 to the Chromecast with Google TV  —  Google's latest Chromecast with Google TV is filling in one of its biggest missing apps …
Washington Post:
CISA's Einstein, which cost billions and monitors US agencies' networks for bad actors, missed the SolarWinds hack, which now counts the NIH among its victims  —  When Russian hackers first slipped their digital Trojan horses into federal government computer systems, probably sometime in the spring …
Jack Morse / Mashable:
Twitter says it will stop prompting users to Quote Tweet, restoring the standard RT functionality, and says QT use increased but overall sharing dropped by 20%  —  Well, it was worth a shot.  —  Twitter announced Wednesday that it will cease prompting users to quote tweet in lieu of the standard retweet.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Google's Stadia arrives on iOS and iPadOS in beta for mobile web, letting users access their game library on Apple devices  —  Playing Cyberpunk 2077 on an iPad is pretty great  —  Google Stadia has finally made its way to iOS over a year after launch.  The company's mobile web beta …
Adrienne LaFrance / The Atlantic:
A pessimistic look at Facebook and its enormous, uncontrollable impact on the US and world, giving Zuckerberg incredible power with little oversight  —  The Doomsday Machine was never supposed to exist.  It was meant to be a thought experiment that went like this: Imagine a device built …
Joe Tidy / BBC:
Dutch prosecutors find researcher Victor Gevers did successfully log into Donald Trump's Twitter account; the White House and Twitter denied the incident  —  Dutch prosecutors have found a hacker did successfully log in to Donald Trump's Twitter account by guessing his password - “MAGA2020!”
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Roku and WarnerMedia have reached an agreement to distribute HBO Max on the Roku platform, starting Thursday  —  Roku and WarnerMedia have reached an agreement for the distribution of the HBO Max on the Roku platform — nearly seven months after the streaming service launched.
The Guardian:
Invoices show Israeli surveillance firm Rayzone leased access to SS7 traffic from a Channel Islands mobile operator to spy on cell communications and locations  —  The Israeli private intelligence company Rayzone Group appears to have had access to the global telecommunications network via …
FinSMEs:
BigID, which helps monitor and protect enterprise customers' data, raises $70M Series D led by Salesforce Ventures and Tiger Global at a valuation of $1B+  —  BigID, a NYC-based leader in data discovery and intelligence for privacy, protection and perspective, raised $70Mm in series D financing …
William Boston / Wall Street Journal:
Germany says it will permit the use of Huawei's 5G tech after receiving assurances from the company about its safety, pending parliamentary approval  —  New network-security legislation is latest rebuke to U.S. effort to rein in Chinese tech giant  —  BERLIN—The German government …
Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch:
Pinterest says it will adopt recommendations from a special committee created to address racial and gender discrimination, including unconscious bias training  —  Pinterest has committed to adopting the recommendations from its special committee of the Board of Directors, the company wrote in a blog post today.
Danah Boyd / LinkedIn:
The Biden administration needs a VP of Engineering to debug problems that prevent government agencies from successfully building and deploying technical systems  —  If you look at the roster of the Biden-Harris transition team, it's quickly apparent that the incoming administration is tech-forward.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Apple AirPods Max review: high-luxury design, terrific sound quality, and very effective noise cancellation, but they are heavy and the case is an abomination  —  Apple's over-ear headphones have tremendous build quality and sound, but there's no denying they're expensive
Bloomberg:
A group of AI researchers at Google have asked for policy and leadership changes including the removal of VP Megan Kacholia from their reporting hierarchy  —  - Team says it must be able to contest Google ‘revenue agendas’  — Letter to CEO asks company to commit to academic integrity
More: CNN
Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE:
Log data analytics service ChaosSearch raises $40M Series B co-led by Stripes and Moore Strategic Ventures, bringing its total raised to $59M  —  Log data analytics platform company ChaosSearch Inc. said today it has closed on a $40 million round of funding.

Sponsor Posts

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:
How to choose the right live chat software for your business  —  In a world where instant communication is the norm, live chat software enables businesses to meet customer expectations with real-time assistance.
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Wed. 11/13 - Amazon Haul
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 9:45 PM ET, December 16, 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

Earlier Picks

Caitlin McCabe / Wall Street Journal:
Alex Stamos / Washington Post: