Techmeme
May 11, 2020, 2:50 AM

Top News

Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Researcher: PCs with Thunderbolt ports have an unpatchable flaw letting hackers with physical access circumvent data safeguards; some new PCs are not affected  —  The so-called Thunderspy attack takes less than five minutes to pull off with physical access to a device, and affects any PC manufactured before 2019.
Siva Vaidhyanathan / Wired:
In its quasi-judiciary role, Facebook Oversight Board is neutered from the start since it can not mandate codes of conduct or effectively help minimize harm  —  The company's new review board is designed to move slowly and keep things intact.  —  My late colleague, Neil Postman …
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Report: the White House is in talks with Intel and TSMC about building chip factories in the US to strengthen domestic supply chains  —  The Trump administration hasn't been shy about wanting to reduce its dependence on Asia for technology, and that might soon include the processors inside PCs and phones.
Benedict Evans:
A look at what could be holding back VR, as a breakthrough moment seems unlikely to materialize despite ripe conditions and nearly a decade of big bets on VR  —  We tried VR in the 1980s, and it didn't work.  The idea may have been great, but the technology of the day was nowhere close to delivering it …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Microsoft starts rolling out a new Reply All Storm Protection feature to Office 365 customers that lets IT staff detect and stop Reply-All email storms  —  Redmond adds protection against massive “Reply-All” email storms after suffering two internal incidents in 2019 and 2020.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: online used-car seller Vroom files confidentially for IPO, setting sights on a June offering after its December 2019 funding round valued it at $1.5B  —  Firm sets sights on a June offering after rich funding round  —  Online used-car seller Vroom Inc. has filed confidentially …
Ben Smith / New York Times:
As Australian and French regulators plan to make tech companies pay publishers for news content, leaders from Ireland to Malaysia say they are paying attention  —  News organizations have long hoped that tech platforms would pay them for news.  Now regulators abroad are moving to make that happen.
Jeremy White / WIRED UK:
Greg Joswiak, Apple's VP of product marketing, talks about the development of AirPods, says the product has “done even better than we could ever imagine”  —  The wireless headphones have been a surprise hit.  Here's how  —  If you started a business in an ultra-competitive space …
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon 768G processor with faster graphics performance and global 5G support  —  Qualcomm isn't wasting any time following up last year's Snapdragon 765G gaming chip with a more powerful model.  It's unveiling the Snapdragon 768G, a follow-up that appears to address what many gamers want the most: raw performance.
Richard Nieva / CNET:
Source: Eric Schmidt left his role as technical advisor to Alphabet in February, ending his 19-year tenure at Google  —  Eric Schmidt , who drove Google's transformation from Silicon Valley start-up to global titan, is no longer an adviser to the search giant and its parent Alphabet …

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