Techmeme River

June 2, 2020, 7:25 PM

June 2, 2020

7:10 PM •	Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac: Early build of iOS 14 points to the addition of an offline, built-in translator in Safari and possible full support of Apple Pencil input on websites
6:10 PM •	Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC: Twitter appoints board member Patrick Pichette as chairman of Twitter, replacing Omid Kordestani; Pichette previously served as Google CFO from 2008 to 2015
5:05 PM •	Kate Conger / New York Times: Trump's executive order on social media is facing its first legal challenge, from the Center for Democracy and Technology, filed in DC's US District Court
4:32 PM •	Jordan Novet / CNBC: Zoom Q1: revenue of $328.2M, up 169% YoY, 265K customers with 10+ employees, up 354% YoY, projected Q2 revenue nearly double expectations, down 3% after hours
4:00 PM •	Malathi Nayak / Bloomberg: In an ongoing censorship case filed against YouTube by LGBTQ creators, Trump's DOJ asked a judge not to declare Section 230 unconstitutional
3:30 PM •	New York Times: The Trump administration says it will open an investigation into taxes on digital commerce that have been adopted or proposed in nine countries and the EU
3:27 PM •	Aaron Tilley / Wall Street Journal: Rivals say Microsoft used sharp-elbowed tactics to push Teams during the pandemic, deploying 50 staffers to work with NYC's school district to replace Zoom
3:10 PM •	New York Times: On a call with Facebook employees Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg stood firmly behind his decision to leave up President Trump's inflammatory posts
2:05 PM •	Rick Edmonds / Poynter: Blockchain journalism startup Civil is shutting down following its failure to find substitute financing after losing its major source of funding, ConsenSys
1:05 PM •	Dave Gershgorn / OneZero : Analysis of NIST-submitted vendors shows at least 45 companies now advertise real-time facial recognition services, from RealNetworks to Toshiba
1:00 PM •	Ina Fried / Axios: After discussing the lack of action on Trump's posts with Mark Zuckerberg, civil rights leaders say they are “stunned by Mark's incomprehensible explanations”
12:55 PM •	James Vincent / The Verge: As Blackout Tuesday posts fill Instagram feeds, many say they are drowning out vital information shared under the BLM and BlackLivesMatter hashtags
12:30 PM •	Bloomberg: India announces ~$6.6B in incentives to woo smartphone makers, in a bid to make the country a global hub for mobile phone production
12:00 PM •	Reuters: Hong Kong-listed Chinese chip maker Semiconductor Manufacturing International aims to raise ~$2.8B via a Shanghai listing
11:30 AM •	Nilay Patel / The Verge: AT&T says HBO Max will be excused from AT&T's mobile data caps via its “sponsored data” program, while competing services like Netflix and Disney+ will not
11:15 AM •	Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch: Facebook introduces its Manage Activity tool, an easier way to delete or archive old posts in bulk
10:45 AM •	Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Locus Robotics, which makes autonomous warehouse robots, raises $40M Series D led by Zebra Technologies, bringing its total raised to $105M+
9:45 AM •	Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Appway, which develops customer management tools for financial services companies, raises $37M in its first-ever funding from Summit Partners
7:55 AM •	Gretchen McCulloch / Wired: The pandemic presents the biggest language translation challenge for COVID-19 info, as Wikipedia supports 309 languages, Google Translate 109, and Bing 71
7:20 AM •	Financial Times: Chinese gaming company NetEase seeks to raise between $2.6B to $3B in a Hong Kong secondary offering, amid tensions between Beijing and Washington
6:15 AM •	Jon Porter / The Verge: Samsung's Sero TV, which rotates between landscape and portrait depending on the kind of content, is now available in the US and UK for $1,999
4:30 AM •	Ina Fried / Axios: Cisco says it is postponing the online version of Cisco Live, its major customer event that was scheduled to start Tuesday, amid ongoing protests across the US
2:05 AM •	Sarah Frier / Bloomberg: Trump's fury at Twitter might end up being good for the service by increasing engagement, and thus ad sales, while highlighting its anti-misinformation efforts
1:31 AM •	Casey Newton / The Verge: In leaked audio from an internal meeting, Mark Zuckerberg says they will re-examine policies around politicians discussing the use of state force on Facebook

June 1, 2020

11:10 PM •	Sahil Patel / Wall Street Journal: Google says YouTube and YouTube TV have more than 100M people in the US watching on TV screens each month, rising 80% YoY in March
9:55 PM •	NBC News: Twitter suspended the account of a white nationalist group claiming to be an Antifa organization that pushed violent rhetoric related to ongoing protests
9:05 PM •	Khari Johnson / VentureBeat: OpenAI researchers debut GPT-3 language model trained with 175B parameters, far more than GPT-2's biggest version with 1.5B parameters
8:10 PM •	Jeff Benson / Decrypt: ConsenSys has helped North American Collegiate League build an Ethereum-based service to make reporting smoother, automate payments for its esports tournaments
7:10 PM •	Makena Kelly / The Verge: Twitter restricts a tweet from US House Rep. Matt Gaetz for violating its policy against glorifying violence, after it had been retweeted over 12,000 times
6:20 PM •	Gartner: Gartner says global sales of smartphones to end users declined 20.2% YoY in Q1'20, with Huawei performing the worst out of the top five vendors, down 27.3% YoY
5:20 PM •	Tony Romm / Washington Post: A bipartisan group of Senators say they plan to introduce a bill regulating contact-tracing and exposure-notification apps
3:55 PM •	Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: Apple pushes iOS and iPadOS 13.5.1, saying it patches the flaw used by the Unc0ver jailbreak, and also pushes updates for watchOS, tvOS, HomePod, and macOS
3:30 PM •	Tom Warren / The Verge: Sony postpones a PlayStation 5 event scheduled for June 4 “to allow more important voices to be heard”, following similar moves by EA and Google amid protests
3:15 PM •	TechCrunch: Google adds a suite of Bedtime tools to Android, building on its Wind Down feature, to turn on Do Not Disturb and enable grayscale effect, for Pixels first
2:15 PM •	Elizabeth A. Harris / New York Times: Hachette, Penguin Random House, Wiley, HarperCollins sue Internet Archive, saying its project to let users borrow ebooks scanned from books violates copyrights
1:40 PM •	Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat: Google pushes an update for its Pixel line, with improved Adaptive Battery, Google Assistant integration with Recorder, a personal safety check scheduler, more
12:40 PM •	New York Times: In a rare public protest at Facebook, hundreds of staff staged a virtual walkout, pushing back on Zuckerberg's choice to let Trump's inflammatory posts stand
12:15 PM •	Meagan Simpson / BetaKit: Clearpath Robotics raises ~$29M Series C led by Kensington Capital Partners to expand Otto Motors, its autonomous industrial robots division
10:55 AM •	Damien Wilde / 9to5Google: Samsung launches Access, a new service for US users offering an S20 handset, Microsoft 365, 1TB OneDrive, and more, starting at $37/month
10:40 AM •	Ina Fried / Axios: Survey: 54% of Americans agree with adding fact-checking labels to Trump tweets; 60%+ say politicians' lies are a bigger threat than censorship on social media
9:45 AM •	Bloomberg: Global Disinformation Index report examining 49 sites with COVID-19 disinformation says Google placed ads on 84% of them
9:10 AM •	Michael Pelly / Australian Financial Review: Australian appeals court rules that media companies can be held responsible for defamatory comments posted under stories on their Facebook Pages
8:55 AM •	Matthew Hutson / Science: Researchers: new algorithms aimed at making neural networks more efficient perform as well as old algorithms, suggesting little improvement over 10-year period
8:20 AM •	Igor Bosilkovski / Forbes: Accern, which uses NLP and predictive analytics to create workflow automation and risk management software for financial services industry, raises $13M Series A
7:45 AM •	Sam Shead / CNBC: As some Facebook employees publicly express anger, Mark Zuckerberg announces Facebook is committing $10M to groups working on racial injustice
7:35 AM •	Bloomberg: Zynga says it will buy Turkish mobile game developer Peak for $1.8B, its biggest acquisition yet; the deal is $900M in cash and $900M in Zynga stock
6:55 AM •	Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Singapore-based Beam, which offers shared electric scooters in Korea, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Taiwan, raises $26M Series A
4:35 AM •	Noah Kirsch / Forbes: StubHub's co-founder Eric Baker bought back the company for $4B just days before the pandemic brought the live events business to a halt
2:56 AM •	Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Indian government rejects Walmart-owned Flipkart's proposal to enter the food retail business in the country
1:35 AM •	Zheping Huang / Bloomberg: Alibaba debuts AliExpress Connect, a service to pair influencers with brands and merchants, hoping to attract 100,000+ creators this year with a focus on Europe

May 31, 2020

11:20 PM •	Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch: Tia Health, the developer of a network of digital wellness apps, clinics, and telehealth services focused on women's health, raises $24M Series A
9:30 PM •	Ben Thompson / Stratechery: Facebook Shops integration with Shopify is good for Shopify merchants, but using Facebook Checkout limits the upside of Shopify's own payments offering
9:05 PM •	Taylor Soper / GeekWire: A look at recent statements by tech companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, and Salesforce, regarding racism in America after George Floyd's death
7:55 PM •	Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Tim Cook, in a memo to staff addressing racism in US, says Apple will give to non-profits like Equal Justice Initiative, match staff donations 2-to-1 in June
6:10 PM •	Kim Lyons / The Verge: YouTube says it will donate $1M to the Center for Policing Equity, a nonprofit think tank that works with police departments to change discriminatory practices
6:10 PM •	Mark Kleinman / Sky News: London-based freight forwarding and supply chain finance startup Beacon raises $15M Series A from investors including 8VC and Jeff Bezos
4:30 PM •	Louise Matsakis / Wired: Some Walmart staff claim AI-based tech used in stores to prevent shoplifting misidentifies innocuous behavior as theft and often fails to flag actual stealing
2:20 PM •	Stitcher Blog: Stitcher releases its first podcasting report, with 10 years of data trends; a pandemic update shows a dip in listening at commute times and a lunchtime rise
12:14 PM •	Mike Allen / Axios: Sources: President Trump and Mark Zuckerberg had a phone conversation on Friday that was described by both sides as productive
10:20 AM •	Amy Feldman / Forbes: Benchling, which makes software for tracking and managing data from biotech research, raises $50M at a $850M valuation, bringing its total raised to $114M
8:15 AM •	Andy Greenberg / Wired: US is taking a state-by-state approach to COVID-19 contact tracing apps, which could cause security and privacy issues in addition to hindering interoperability
6:10 AM •	Ian Allison / CoinDesk: Experts discuss plans announced by Coinbase, Genesis Trading, and BitGo to become crypto's “prime brokers” and what that reveals about the state of the industry
4:05 AM •	Lily Hay Newman / Wired: Internet security group Shadowserver receives $600K over 3 years from Trend Micro and a $400K donation from Internet Society, says it can now operate into 2021
2:00 AM •	Kirsten Grind / Wall Street Journal: COVID-19 Technology Task Force, an effort to let big tech companies assist White House's pandemic response, beset by disagreements over privacy and other issues
1:15 AM •	Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: Spain-based Freepik, a freemium vector graphics and stock photos marketplace, acquired by PE firm EQT; local news report says deal values Freepik at €250M
1:00 AM •	Annie Musgrove / Tech.eu: Berlin-based smava, an online portal that helps consumers compare loans offered by over 20 banks and lending partners, raises €57M in debt and equity
12:45 AM •	Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News: Pie Insurance, a startup offering an automated online service that provides small businesses with workers' compensation insurance, announces $127M raise

May 30, 2020

11:25 PM •	John Herman / New York Times: The pandemic pushed Amazon to its breaking point, prematurely delivering a future it has been planning for, where whole categories of physical retail are closed
11:25 PM •	Max Chafkin / Bloomberg: US to join Global Partnership on AI, set up to counter China's influence in development of AI technologies, becoming the last of the G-7 countries to sign on
9:20 PM •	Adrianne Jeffries / The Markup: Grubhub should be thriving during the pandemic; instead, delivery apps' unworkable business model, charging high fees to small restaurants, creates huge losses
7:15 PM •	Nikkei Asian Review: Sources say Huawei has stockpiled up to two years' worth of crucial US chips, focusing on Intel CPUs, to shield its operations from US crackdowns
5:10 PM •	The Hacker News: Apple paid a researcher $100K for reporting a flaw in “Sign in with Apple” in April that could have let attackers hijack any user's account on third-party apps
4:15 PM •	Kate Conger / New York Times: How, after years of internal deliberations, Twitter finally came to the decision to begin labeling Trump's misleading and violence-glorifying tweets
2:15 PM •	Tom Warren / The Verge: Microsoft lays off editorial staff at its News and MSN divisions, reportedly affecting around 50 US and 27 UK jobs, as it increases use of AI for news curation
1:38 PM •	Oversight Board / @oversightboard: [Thread] Facebook Oversight Board says it is “working hard to set the Board up to begin operating later this year”
12:20 PM •	Patience Haggin / Wall Street Journal: Comcast is spinning off Blockgraph, its cable TV ad-targeting service, to create a three-way joint venture with ViacomCBS and Charter Communications
11:00 AM •	Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge: Waymo to return its fleet to service in Bay Area starting June 8th delivering packages for two non-profits, thus sidestepping “shelter-in-place” regulations
8:55 AM •	Parimal Satyal / Neustadt.fr: A look at the small and independent web, why it's different from the sites that dominate web traffic today, and why it's worth exploring
6:50 AM •	Bryce Covert / Wired: A behind-the-scenes account of how Kickstarter workers came together to become the first white-collar technology workforce to unionize in US history
4:45 AM •	Chris Stokel-Walker / Increment: A look at the rise of React, an open-source JavaScript library for building user interfaces, led by a small team of developers at Facebook
2:40 AM •	Abner Li / 9to5Google: Google says it is delaying the Android 11 beta release and virtual launch event that was scheduled for June 3, but the final release is still on track for Q3
2:00 AM •	Brandon Vigliarolo / TechRepublic: Stack Overflow's annual survey, taken by 65K+ developers: Rust remains most loved language at 86.1%, followed by TypeScript at 67.1%, Python dropped to third
1:35 AM •	Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Atlantic: Mutual aid groups across the US are organizing online via productivity tools like Airtable and Slack to exchange info, coordinate grocery distribution, and more
1:00 AM •	Josh Dzieza / The Verge: Third-party Amazon sellers are marking products as “collectible” to get around price gouging rules; sellers say the loophole was rarely used before the pandemic
12:35 AM •	Peter Kafka / Vox: Executives at big tech companies have publicly stayed silent on Trump's social media executive order, with many executives thinking it's really aimed at Twitter
12:15 AM •	Bloomberg: Analysis of Layoffs.fyi data: tech companies have cut over 40,000 jobs during the pandemic, led by the travel and transportation sector with 14,250 layoffs

May 29, 2020

9:45 PM •	Jim Motavalli / New York Times: More questions loom for self-driving cars as the pandemic raises concerns over consumer hygiene tolerance in shared vehicles
8:50 PM •	Ashley Carman / The Verge: Interview with Kickstarter CEO Aziz Hasan on the future of crowdfunding and how the pandemic has impacted the number and types of projects on the site
8:00 PM •	Casey Newton / The Verge: Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook won't remove Trump's post on Minnesota protests to “enable as much expression as possible”, says it doesn't violate its policies
6:35 PM •	Wall Street Journal: Sources: Tencent is in talks to buy a $200M stake in Warner Music Group in advance of Warner's IPO; the offering is expected to value WMG around $11.7B- $13.3B
5:30 PM •	Casey Newton / The Verge: Leaked posts show Facebook's decision not to remove Trump's threat of violence is roiling employees, some of whom are calling on execs to reconsider the stance
5:05 PM •	NBC News: Facebook says it banned anti-vaccination news site Natural News for using content farms from Macedonia and the Philippines, not for the content it posted
4:50 PM •	Margaret Harding McGill / Axios: Sen. Ted Cruz calls for criminal investigation of Twitter, alleging it is violating US sanctions against Iran by letting Iranian leaders maintain accounts
3:10 PM •	Makena Kelly / The Verge: Biden campaign says he still wants to repeal Section 230, but emphasizes key differences from Trump's EO, like policies for more moderation, rather than less
2:25 PM •	Zac Hall / 9to5Mac: Apple announces Powerbeats Pro in four new colors: Spring Yellow, Cloud Pink, Lava Red, and Glacier Blue, available June 9 for $249
1:40 PM •	Kevin Roose / New York Times: Trump's war on social media is today's version of the fights between internet message board moderators and aggrieved trolls in the early 2000s
1:10 PM •	Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Amazon confirms Echo Look devices will stop working from July after pulling the Alexa-powered camera in Dec. 2019, offers discounts on Echo Show for Look users
12:40 PM •	Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times: Sony says it is on track to launch PlayStation 5 this year and has begun manufacturing the console, announces a games-focused event on June 4
12:10 PM •	Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: Twitter and Reddit file an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit challenging a State Department rule that visa applicants must disclose social media handles
11:30 AM •	Dara Kerr / CNET: Uber announces an hourly booking feature that lets people book trips for up to seven hours at a time, for $50 an hour
10:35 AM •	Javier Espinoza / Financial Times: Tile sends letter to European Commission arguing that recent changes in iOS hinder its product as Apple prepares to launch a competing tracker
10:00 AM •	Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Facebook's NPE launches Venue, a “second screen” app where selected well-known personalities will provide commentary and engage with fans during live events
9:20 AM •	Andrew Hutchinson / Social Media Today: Zynn, a TikTok clone from ByteDance Chinese rival Kuaishou, pays users to watch videos and has now hit the top of the US iOS App Store following its May debut
8:45 AM •	Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Google's concept of federated analytics shows users' privacy can be protected by analyzing a device's data locally and collecting only aggregated results
8:25 AM •	Daisuke Wakabayashi / New York Times: Facing an advertising slump, Google rescinds job offers to temporary and contract workers; sources say around 2,000 people are affected globally
8:05 AM •	Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE: Crowdsourced security testing service Synack raises $52M Series D from C5 Capital, B Capital, and others, report says at a nearly $500M valuation
7:25 AM •	Tom Warren / The Verge: Microsoft details work with Google to improve spellcheck in Chrome and Edge, both of which now use Windows Spellcheck, with better support for URLs, acronyms
6:35 AM •	Todd Spangler / Variety: As Twitter adds a warning to Trump's tweet advocating violence against Minneapolis protesters, so far Facebook and Instagram have left similar posts unchanged
5:45 AM •	New York Times: Trump's social media EO, if enacted, would create problems for him, attacking the legal provision that allows inflammatory, harassing, and untruthful messages
5:05 AM •	Lulu Yilun Chen / Bloomberg: Didi Chuxing raises $500M led by SoftBank for its autonomous driving division, the first external investment for the fledgling self-driving subsidiary
4:05 AM •	Ina Fried / Axios: Twitter determines two tweets about protesters from Trump and White House violate its rules on glorifying violence; users must click to see the labeled tweets
2:05 AM •	IDC: Global shipments of wearable devices reached 72.6M units in Q1, growing 29.7% YoY, with Apple shipping 21.2M units for a 29.3% market share
12:30 AM •	Kyle Bradshaw / 9to5Google: Google releases Android Studio 4.0, with Motion Editor for making MotionLayout animations and tools to allow previewing apps in 3D and in multiple screen sizes

May 28, 2020

11:40 PM •	Olga Kharif / Bloomberg: Samsung is partnering with Winklevoss' crypto exchange Gemini to allow users to more easily trade and store digital assets on mobile phones
10:55 PM •	Nick Statt / The Verge: ACLU sues Clearview AI in Illinois alleging the facial recognition startup violated residents' privacy by scraping, selling their online photos without consent
10:20 PM •	João Carrasqueira / Neowin: Twitter now lets users schedule tweets in advance, up to 18 months, and gives users the option to save tweet drafts from its web app
9:45 PM •	Electronic Frontier Foundation: Trump EO misreads Section 230 by conflating two independent subsections and asking the FCC to link the two provisions together, despite previous rulings
9:00 PM •	Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz is stepping down as CEO, says the company has raised “significant” funding and pivoted to spatial computing for enterprise
8:00 PM •	Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: NSA warns Russia-linked Sandworm hacking group has been actively exploiting a now-patched flaw in Exim mail transfer agent since Aug., exposing ~2.5M servers
7:30 PM •	Mike Masnick / Techdirt: Trump's EO has limited power, as content created by a platform, like Twitter's labels, is not covered by Section 230 and the FCC lacks authority to enforce EO

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