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September 18, 2019, 7:55 PM
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WeSmirchTop News
| Josh Constine / TechCrunch: |
Facebook debuts Portal TV, a TV accessory for video calling, streaming, AR gaming, and co-viewing Facebook Watch shows, shipping November 5 for $149 — Facebook wants to take over your television with a clip-on camera for video calling, AR gaming, and content co-watching.
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Facebook, Wall Street Journal, CNET, Bloomberg, ExtremeTech, USA Today, SiliconANGLE, TechSpot, Mashable, MacRumors, Telegraph, Android Police, Android Central, iPhone in Canada Blog, BGR, Bloomberg, WinBuzzer, Quartz, Thurrott, Washington Post, Adweek, Bloomberg, Daring Fireball, The Streamable, Seeking Alpha, and iDownloadBlog.com
Tweets: @joshconstine, @boztank, @rh_brown, @tomwarren, @ow, @amahnke, @jason_kint, @gpollowitz, @saysdana, and @heatherkelly. Thanks:@joshconstine
| Nick Statt / The Verge: |
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The Verge, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Thurrott, CNBC, Financial Times, CNET, ZDNet, and Engadget
Tweets: @shitcoinprotips, @skepteis, @mrjabbott, and @alexjkane
| Bloomberg: |
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CBS San Francisco, Business Insider, TechHive, Engadget, and Mashable
Tweets: @business, @sarahfrier, @iansherr, @joshconstine, @shiraovide, @canterrain, @vladsavov, @silviakillings, and @the_dools
| Kara Swisher / Vox: |
Apple's VP of communications Steve Dowling is leaving the company after five years in the role; Dowling joined the company 16 years ago — Steve Dowling, who has headed Apple's communications for the last five years, is leaving after 16 years at the company.
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Daring Fireball, Philip Elmer‑DeWitt, VentureBeat, iMore, MacRumors, Bloomberg, 9to5Mac, Silicon Valley Business …, CNBC, iDownloadBlog.com, MACお宝 …, and iPhone in Canada Blog
Tweets: @waltmossberg, @waltmossberg, @pitts_man, @reneritchie, @chris_ciaccia, @neilcybart, @stroughtonsmith, and @fxshaw
| Dieter Bohn / The Verge: |
Apple Watch Series 5 review: it's a minor update and battery life hasn't improved, but an always-on, beautiful screen and new apps make it the best smartwatch — There's basically no competition — The highest praise I can give the new Apple Watch Series 5 is simply this: it's an Apple Watch.
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CNBC, TechCrunch, Daring Fireball, HODINKEE, Wired, Digital Trends, BuzzFeed News, CNET, USA Today, Pocket-lint, MobileSyrup, 9to5Mac, Macworld, iMore, iDownloadBlog.com, MacDailyNews, TechSpot, Cult of Mac, MacRumors, iPhone Hacks, MacStories, 9to5Mac, and Fast Company
Tweets: @_harshilshah, @om, @backlon, @backlon, @tomwarren, @laurengoode, @reckless, and @itsnicolenguyen
| Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: |
GitHub buys code analysis tool Semmle, which helps identify security vulnerabilities and has Microsoft, Google among clients; Semmle raised $31M in VC funding — Microsoft's GitHub today announced that it has acquired Semmle, a code analysis tool that helps developers and security researchers … | Gabriel Debenedetti / New York Magazine: |
Inside the growing split between Silicon Valley and the Democratic Party, once allies, as leading presidential candidates express extreme worries about Big Tech — Three summers ago, a worker stood up at “Q&A,” Facebook's weekly all-hands, town-hall-style meeting, which is usually held …
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Business Insider and The Hill
| Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: |
Documents found on an unprotected backup drive of a Nokia Networks employee shed light on Russia's secret network surveillance system, known as SORM — A data leak exposes SORM surveillance at Russia's top telco — In cities across Russia, large boxes in locked rooms are directly connected …
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iTnews, UpGuard, Gizmodo, Boing Boing, and UpGuard
Tweets: @kevinrothrock, @upguard, @patribotics, @kelly2277, @vickerysec, @bidatzi, @zackwhittaker, @zackwhittaker, and @profcarroll
| Jason D. Rowley / Crunchbase News: |
DCVC, which focuses on early-stage “deep” technology startups, closes a $725M fifth fund; the fourth DCVC fund, raised in 2016, topped out at $212M — Back in April, Crunchbase News spotted a filing by DCVC (formerly known as Data Collective) indicating that the Palo Alto-based … | Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: |
Amazon will begin rolling out Alexa Political Contributions, which lets users donate $5-$200 to participating US presidential candidates, starting next month — The 2020 U.S. presidential election is just over a year away, and ahead of it, Amazon's rolling out a new feature … | Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times: |
Researchers: many smart TVs and streaming dongles from Roku, Samsung, Amazon and others are sending user data to companies like Netflix, Microsoft, and Facebook — The smart TVs in our homes are leaking sensitive user data to companies including Netflix, Google and Facebook even when some devices are idle …
More:
Washington Post, Wired, Mon(IoT)r Research Group, TechSpot, and The Mac Observer
Tweets: @digitalshelter, @dhh, @hoofnagle, and @mmnjug
| Wall Street Journal: |
Sources: AT&T is considering parting ways with its DirecTV unit, including spinning it off into a separate public company or combining assets with Dish — Telecom giant considers fate of DirecTV satellite unit — AT&T Inc. is exploring parting with its DirecTV satellite unit …
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Engadget, CNET, CNBC, The Streamable, and Android Headlines
Tweets: @pkafka, @callumj, @pkafka, @cgasparino, @britrobotista, @the___spy, and @shalini
| Eliot Brown / Wall Street Journal: |
Profile of WeWork CEO Adam Neumann and his sometimes chaotic lifestyle, as sources detail worrying stories, like his wife firing multiple employees she just met — The skills that helped fuel We Co.'s breakneck growth are piling up as potential liabilities as the company prepares to go public
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Business Insider, Gizmodo, Financial Times, Mashable, The Verge, Fast Company, Business Insider, CNBC, KrASIA, Inc42 Media, Boing Boing, and Slate
| Jay Peters / The Verge: |
Medium adds a “Save to Medium” bookmarking feature that lets users save articles to a reading list via sharing extensions on mobile and in Chrome — Most sites don't load in reading mode — Medium's “Save to Medium” bookmarking feature is now live, letting you save articles … | The Verge: |
Roundup of everything that is known about Google's Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, set to be announced on October 15, after weeks of non-stop leaks — Google's Pixel 3 might have been the most-leaked phone in history. Long before its unveiling, we knew practically everything about it from unboxing videos …
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reddit, Android Authority, CNN, MSPoweruser, CNET, Engadget, and Engadget
Tweets: @davegershgorn and @jaypeters
| Joseph Cox / VICE: |
Repo men are scanning and uploading locations of cars they drive past into DRN, a surveillance database of 9B license plates accessible by private investigators — Repo men are passively scanning and uploading the locations of every car they drive by into DRN, a surveillance database …
Tweets: @jason_koebler, @lorenzofb, @alibreland, and @aclu
| Lauren Smiley / Wired: |
How data from the victim's Fitbit and a neighbor's Ring surveillance camera played a crucial role in the arrest of a 90-year-old suspect in a murder trial in CA — Karen Navarra was a quiet woman in her sixties who lived alone. She was found beaten to death. The neighbors didn't see anything.
Tweets: @chrissyfarr, @wired, @laurensmiley, @wired, @wired, @nxthompson, and @wired
| Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: |
IBM unveils a 53-qubit quantum computer, scheduled to arrive next month, making it the largest universal quantum computer available for external use — IBM continues to push its quantum computing efforts forward and today announced that it will soon make a 53-qubit quantum computer available to clients of its IBM Q Network.
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IBM, CNET, Ars Technica, TechRepublic, Business Insider, SiliconANGLE, Boing Boing, ZDNet, Fortune, and MIT Technology Review. Tweets: @preskill
| Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Atlantic: |
Instagram's Close Friends feature proves controversial as both an influencer revenue stream and superficial gateway to intimacy — Gabi Abrao, better known as @sighswoon on Instagram, is “developing a language with the invisible.” Her page is half memes, half photos of her—eating fresh fruit … | Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Google begins rolling out new features for its Family Link parental control tool, including app-specific screen time and the ability to grant extra time — Google's parental control software, Family Link, is getting a noteworthy update today with the addition of new features that will allow parents …
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PC Gamer, Engadget, 9to5Google, and VentureBeat
| Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
Descript, a toolmaker for podcasting, raises $15M Series A from a16z and Redpoint and acquires Lyrebird, which lets users create audio of their voices from text — The boom in popularity for podcasting has given a new voice to the world of spoken word content that had been largely left for dead with the decline of broadcast radio.
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Descript, Fast Company, Voicebot, and Digital Trends. Tweets: @chrismessina. Thanks:@ingridlunden
| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Amazon says it is bringing Amazon PayCode, which allows customers to check out using cash at Western Union locations, to the US — Amazon is making it easier for customers to pay with cash for their online purchases. The retailer today announced the U.S. arrival of Amazon PayCode …
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Amazon.com, Inc., ZDNet, Digital Commerce 360, 9to5Toys, Engadget, and Neowin
| Lukas I. Alpert / Wall Street Journal: |
Facing mounting antitrust pressure, Google and Facebook have been cozying up to publishers, offering oft-requested fees and news-ranking changes — Facing mounting antitrust probes, tech platforms offer fees, news-ranking changes media outlets have pursued for years| Washington Post: |
Congress grills Google, Facebook, and Twitter again as lawmakers weigh creating a commission with subpoena power to study and monitor social media weaponization — House lawmakers are planning to unveil legislation to probe social media and online extremism| Hayley Tsukayama / Electronic Frontier Foundation: |
Another push by tech giants to weaken the California Consumer Privacy Act, set to go into effect Jan. 1, has failed as it survives legislative sessions intact — The California Consumer Privacy Act will go into effect on January 1, 2020—having fended off a year of targeted efforts by technology giants who wanted to gut the bill.
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Lexology, The National Law Review, Privacy Law Blog, Lexology, and Government Technology News. Tweets: @eff
| Sahil Patel / Wall Street Journal: |
Nielsen acquires a minority stake in OpenSlate, which evaluates brand safety of video content on YouTube and Facebook; source: deal values OpenSlate at $100M+ — Measurement company will offer customers digital content-quality ratings — Nielsen Holdings PLC has acquired a minority stake … | Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: |
Researchers discover a weakness in the WS-Discovery protocol, found in over 800,000 IoT devices, that lets hackers amplify DDoS attacks — WSD is supposed to be confined to local networks. It's not, and researchers are concerned. — Hackers have found a new way to amplify the crippling effects …
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The Akamai Blog, ITworld.com, and Wired
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