Techmeme
August 3, 2021, 1:20 PM

Top News

Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Activision Blizzard says president J. Allen Brack is leaving the company, replaced by Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra, as the fallout from CA lawsuit continues  —  Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra will take over as co-leaders  —  In the last week or so, we've learned about the state of California filing …
Chong Koh Ping / Wall Street Journal:
After Chinese state media criticized online gaming as “opium for the mind” in a now-deleted article, Tencent announces stricter rules for young users  —  Shares of NetEase and Bilibili also suffer steep falls  —  Shares of Tencent Holdings Ltd. and rivals plummeted Tuesday …
Bloomberg:
Q&A with SEC chair Gary Gensler on protecting cryptocurrency investors from fraud, regulating the industry, Bitcoin ETFs, and other SEC priorities like GameStop  —  It's become a parlor game in Washington, on Wall Street, and in Silicon Valley to figure out where U.S. Securities …
Sam Rutherford / Gizmodo:
Google's Rick Osterloh demos Pixel 6's Tensor SoC, which enables real-time object detection and HDR in videos as well as real-time translation and live captions  —  We sat down with Google's phone chief, Rick Osterloh, to see what the Pixel 6 has in store.  —  Alerts
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Andrew Kersley / Wired UK:
Sources: well over 100 UK-based employees at Amazon's Prime Air drone delivery unit have lost their jobs since 2019, as the company scales back its ambitions  —  Amazon has triggered mass redundancies and transfers as it winds down a huge part of its UK drone delivery business
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Spotify is testing Spotify Plus, a low-cost tier that includes ads but doesn't impose limits on track skipping and lets users pick specific songs to play  —  Spotify Plus is being piloted with a ‘limited number’ of users  —  Spotify Plus is a new $.99 subscription tier being piloted …
Rainey Reitman / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
The confusing language in the infrastructure bill's crypto provision suggests that nearly any entity in crypto is a broker and must collect their users' data  —  The forthcoming Senate draft of Biden's infrastructure bill—a 2,000+ page bill designed to update the United States' roads …
The Information:
Facebook confirms it is building a team of AI researchers to study ways of analyzing encrypted data without decrypting it, potentially helping better target ads  —  Facebook is bulking up a team of artificial intelligence researchers, including a key hire from Microsoft …
Antoine Gara / Forbes:
How Michael Dell oversaw Dell's expansion after taking it private, growing the company to $75B, by focusing on providing infrastructure to businesses and others  —  After years battling Silicon Valley skeptics and Wall Street adversaries, Michael Dell has pulled off the deal of the century …
Boris Metodiev / Strategy Analytics:
Xiaomi became Europe's top smartphone vendor in Q2 with 12.7M units shipped, up 67.1% YoY, followed by Samsung with 12M, down 7% YoY, and Apple with 9.6M  —  According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, Europe smartphone shipments grew a strong +14% YoY to 50.1 million units in Q2 2021 …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Twitter partners with Reuters and the AP, who will provide context and highlight links from trusted sources for Trends, Moments, Search, and more  —  Twitter announced today it's partnering with news organizations The Associated Press (AP) and Reuters to expand its efforts focused …
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Citizen launches Protect, a $20/month service that offers access to a Citizen operator and other features, after a 100,000-user beta test  —  After months of testing with upwards of 100,000 beta testers, Citizen today is launching its premium Protect offering for all users.
Martin Matishak / The Record:
A bipartisan Senate investigation finds that, despite years of warnings, many US government agencies have not established effective cybersecurity programs  —  Several major federal agencies continue to fail to address recurring cybersecurity vulnerabilities or implement basic standards …
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Researchers were able to quickly circumvent security protections of a laptop that followed virtually all NIST recommendations, including TPM and UEFI SecureBoot  —  Sometimes, locking down a laptop with the latest defenses isn't enough.  —  Let's say you're a large company that has just shipped …
Dmitry Smilyanets / The Record:
Interview with BlackMatter, a new ransomware group that only targets companies with $100M+ revenue and says it will avoid certain industries like healthcare  —  Editor's Note: In July, a new ransomware gang started posting advertisements on various cybercrime forums announcing that it was seeking …
Sami Fathi / MacRumors:
Apple makes Magic Keyboard with Touch ID available as a standalone product for $149; the keyboard is only compatible with Apple silicon Macs  —  Apple has made the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID, which previously was only available with the purchase of the new 24-inch iMac, available for purchase individually for $179.
Yael Eisenstat / Washington Post:
A former Facebook elections integrity head criticizes it for using preemptive non-disparagement clauses to silence employees, shutting avenues for transparency  —  Non-disparagement clauses can keep former employees from discussing the company  —  Since the Jan. 6 insurrection …

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