Techmeme
January 22, 2020, 10:40 PM

Top News

Stephanie Kirchgaessner / The Guardian:
UN special rapporteurs say they are “gravely concerned” about the alleged hacking of Jeff Bezos' phone by Saudi's MbS, calling for further investigations  —  ‘Grave concern’ expressed at evidence of possible ‘effort to silence Washington Post’  —  UN experts are demanding …
VICE:
Leaked FTI Consulting report: investigators found a suspicious encrypted file on Jeff Bezos' iPhone, causing data transfers to jump by ~29,000%, but no malware  —  A report investigating the potential hack of Jeff Bezos' iPhone indicates that forensic investigators found a suspicious file but no evidence of any malware on the phone.
Stephanie Kirchgaessner / The Guardian:
Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times:
Google says it found five separate flaws in Apple's Intelligent Tracking Prevention tool for Safari that lets users' browsing behavior be tracked  —  Google researchers have exposed details of multiple security flaws in its rival Apple's Safari web browser that allowed users' browsing behaviour …
Bloomberg:
Sources: ByteDance is seeking a US-based CEO for TikTok and has interviewed candidates; current head Alex Zhu may still manage product and engineering in China  —  - Video app has come under fire in U.S. as security threat  —  Chinese internet giant ByteDance Inc. is seeking …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Twitter is rolling out a pop-up feature that lets users add an emoji reaction to a Direct Message, similar to a feature in iMessage  —  Twitter is taking a page out of Apple's playbook with its latest messaging feature.  The social network announced today that it is rolling out support …
Miles Parks / NPR:
In a first for the US, a district encompassing Greater Seattle will let ~1.2M voters cast ballots via smartphones for an upcoming board of supervisors election  —  Toggle more options  —  A district encompassing Greater Seattle is set to become the first in which every voter can cast …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Microsoft to forcibly install the Bing extension in Chrome for Office 365 ProPlus enterprise customers from mid-February, to change the default search to Bing  —  Microsoft will change the default search engine in Chrome from Google to Bing for its Office 365 ProPlus customers starting mid-February.
Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times:
Amazon says Amazon Music has 55M users across six different price tiers, including a free tier, “nearly all” of which are paying subscribers  —  Amazon's music streaming service has eclipsed 55m users, making the ecommerce group a serious contender in the market that has been historically dominated by Spotify and Apple.
Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:
Austin-based Vapor IO, an edge computing startup, raised $90M from Berkshire Partners and wireless infrastructure giant Crown Castle, says total raise $100M+  —  Edge computing startup Vapor IO announced today the close of its $90 million Series C from private equity firm Berkshire Partners …
Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:
Email collaboration startup Front raises $59M Series C led by a group of CEOs from Atlassian, Okta, Qualtrics, and Zoom, following its $66M Series B in 2018  —  Front, an email collaboration startup, announced this morning it has closed on a $59 million Series C that quadruples its valuation.
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Federal filings: Google spent ~$150M on lobbying over the past decade in the US, followed by Facebook with ~$81M, and Amazon at nearly $80M  —  Federal disclosures filed late Tuesday reveal Amazon and Facebook each spent roughly $17 million to battle back Washington in 2019.
Christina Farr / CNBC:
Epic Systems, a leading provider of digital medical records, calls on large hospitals to oppose proposed US rules that would open up access to patient records  —  - Epic Systems is urging its health system customers to take a stand against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' proposed rules …

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More News

William D. Cohan / Fast Company:
Natasha Singer / New York Times:
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Earlier Picks

Yuan Yang / Financial Times:
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Joseph Menn / Reuters: