Techmeme
June 17, 2020, 6:10 AM

Top News

David Pierce / Protocol:
Shortly after Basecamp debuted its email service, HEY, it says its next iOS app update was rejected because Apple wasn't getting its cut of subscription revenue  —  Right around the time the team at Basecamp was launching their Hey email service to the public on Monday, Zach Waugh …
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Mark Zuckerberg / USA Today:
Facebook launches Voting Information Center for accurate election information and tools for voter registration, aims to help register 4M people via its apps  —  The 2020 election is going to be unlike any other.  It was already going to be a heated campaign, and that was before the pandemic …
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Facebook will allow some US users to turn off political ads starting Wednesday and says the feature will be available to all US users over the next few weeks  —  - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday announced the social network will allow its users to turn off seeing political ads.
Aaron Holmes / Business Insider:
Google cracks down on The Federalist and ZeroHedge for violating policies on race-related content and may permanently suspend their access to Google Ads revenue  —  - Google is cracking down on two right-wing outlets, ZeroHedge and The Federalist, for violating its policies on race-related content.
Robert McMillan / Wall Street Journal:
Graphika report details a Russia-based influence campaign, known as Secondary Infektion, that ran over 6 years and 300 sites, but failed to win a large audience  —  Group known as Secondary Infektion used multiple languages, burner accounts to circumvent attempts to detect it
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Boston Dynamics says Spot, its quadruped robot, is now available to businesses in the US as part of a developer kit for $74,500  —  Boston Dynamics today opened commercial sales of Spot, its quadruped robot that can climb stairs and traverse rough terrain.  Businesses can purchase …
Bloomberg:
Being a Black CEO in Silicon Valley can be humiliating, from being advised to have a white wingman in meetings, to being judged on a different rubric by VCs  —  Will Hayes has grown accustomed to an awkward start to business meetings.  On numerous occasions, venture capitalists would confuse Hayes …
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
San Francisco's district attorney sues DoorDash for allegedly misclassifying workers as contractors instead of employees despite California's AB5 law  —  The largest food delivery service in the US is accused of misclassifying workers  —  DoorDash, the high-flying food delivery startup …
Washington Post:
CIA report: security was so lax at the time of the Vault 7 breach that if WikiLeaks hadn't published its trove, CIA may have never known they were compromised  —  The theft of top-secret computer hacking tools from the CIA in 2016 was the result of a workplace culture in which the agency's …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Researchers disclose 19 flaws in a TCP/IP library, first released in 1997, found in many IoT products; patches are available but unlikely to be widely applied  —  Security researchers disclose 19 vulnerabilities impacting a TCP/IP library found at the base of many IoT products.
Ian Allison / CoinDesk:
ConsenSys launches a pilot “staking-as-a-service” tool, with customers including Binance, ahead of proof-of-stake tech being rolled out with Ethereum 2.0  —  Ethereum development house ConsenSys is being backed by heavy hitters like Binance and Huobi to test its new …
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Amazon says it is deploying AI-powered software called Distance Assistant in warehouses that tells workers if they are too close to colleagues  —  - Workers failing to keep safe distance will be circled in red  — Robotics engineer likens technology to highway speed checkers
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Oracle reports Q4 revenue of $10.44B, down 6% YoY, missing expectations of $10.65B, cloud and on-premises license revenue fell 22% to $1.96B  —  - Revenue declined more than the company had predicted in the quarter  — The company won business from video-calling software provider Zoom in the quarter.
Chris O'Brien / VentureBeat:
Helsinki-based Swappie, an iPhone-only refurb marketplace with its own refurbishment factory, has raised $40M to expand across Europe  —  Swappie has raised $40 million in venture capital to expand its refurbished iPhone marketplace across Europe, where sales of used consumer electronics continue to surge.

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Earlier Picks

Jay Peters / The Verge:
BBC: