Techmeme
January 17, 2020, 10:05 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Facebook puts off its effort to build ads into WhatsApp as it focuses on B2C communications, but will sell ads in WhatsApp's Status at some point  —  Social-media giant scraps earlier strategy, seeks other ways to monetize messaging service used by 1.5 billion
Brad Smith / The Official Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft pledges to be carbon negative by 2030, remove all carbon it has ever emitted by 2050, and launch a $1B climate innovation fund  —  The scientific consensus is clear.  The world confronts an urgent carbon problem.  The carbon in our atmosphere has created a blanket of gas that traps heat and is changing the world's climate.
#PayUp:
DoorDash pay data analysis: the average contractor earns $1.45/hour, nearly 33% of jobs pay less than $0 after expenses, and only 11% pay more than minimum wage  —  Food delivery app DoorDash has grown rapidly into the national industry leader, serving all 50 states and outpacing GrubHub …
Sean Endicott / Windows Central:
Microsoft partners with T-Mobile to provide 4G SIM cards to students in underserved areas, announces 14 Windows 10 PCs, some cell-connected, starting from $219  —  Microsoft announces partnership and new features to improve education.  —  What you need to know
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
NBC says Peacock will launch on July 15 and have a free tier with limited programming and two premium tiers, at $4.99/month with ads and $9.99/month with no ads  —  Comcast is introducing three different subscription tiers  —  NBCUniversal's streaming service, Peacock …
Alex Hern / The Guardian:
Study finds the worlds' biggest brands, including Samsung and L'Oreal, are unknowingly running ads inside climate misinformation videos on YouTube  —  Avaaz says firms are unaware commercials being played alongside misleading videos  —  Some of the biggest companies in the world …
David Ruddock / Android Police:
Kan Liu, the Director of Product Management for Chrome OS, says Google is working to bring Steam support to Chrome OS  —  Last week at the CES trade show in Las Vegas, I spoke with Kan Liu, Director of Product Management for Google's Chrome OS.  In a wide-ranging discussion about the Chrome platform …
More: Thurrott and 9to5Google
Rachel Metz / CNN:
How the increasing use of AI to vet job applications is forcing career counselors at universities to prepare students on how to impress the AI algorithms  —  San Francisco (CNN)College career centers used to prepare students for job interviews by helping them learn how to dress appropriately or write a standout cover letter.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
FBI: nation-state hackers breached the networks of two US municipalities last year, targeting a Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability that was patched in February  —  The SharePoint CVE-2019-0604 vulnerability has been one of the most targeted security flaw  —  Nation-state hackers have breached …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
New report finds Twitch viewership dropped 9.8% in Q4 compared with Q3 after its top streamers left; YouTube Gaming Live hours watched increased 46% over 2019  —  The loss of several big-name streamers is finally taking its toll on Twitch, according to a new report from StreamLabs and Newzoo out today.
Joe Tidy / BBC:
Following a BBC investigation, Twitter apologizes for letting ads be micro-targeted using keywords like “transphobic”, “white supremacists”, and “anti-gay”  —  Twitter has apologised for allowing adverts to be micro-targeted at certain users such as neo-Nazis, homophobes and other hate groups.

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Featured Podcasts

The Upstarts Podcast:
Blitzy's Brian Elliott: Cursor And Claude Code Are Looking At Your Enterprise Code 'Through A Straw'
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
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The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
Re-Release: The Death of Hollywood? W/ Allan Loeb
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
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Great Chat:
Maybe Twitter isn't real life
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
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Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's Plan To Merge Chat And Agents — With Greg Brockman
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
Encore: Inside Joe Weisenthal's brain
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

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More News

Ryan Gallagher / Bloomberg:
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:

Earlier Picks

Chris Welch / The Verge:
New York Times:
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Alan Boyle / GeekWire:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: