Techmeme
July 8, 2020, 10:06 AM

Top News

Mike Isaac / New York Times:
An independent audit commissioned by Facebook harshly criticizes the company, arguing that some of its decisions were “significant setbacks for civil rights”  —  An independent audit faulted the social network for “vexing and heartbreaking decisions” that affect its users — and potentially the November elections.
Free Press:
After meeting between leaders of Facebook, ADL, Free Press, NAACP, and Color Of Change, boycott organizers are unconvinced meaningful change will occur  —  WASHINGTON — On Tuesday afternoon, leaders of four of the organizations coordinating the #StopHateForProfit advertising boycott met …
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
Code in the second developer beta of iOS 14 reveals a hidden and unannounced feature in the Wallet app that would allow payments with QR codes using Apple Pay  —  Apple today released the second developer beta of iOS 14 with some small changes across the system.
Richard C. Moss / Ars Technica:
A retrospective on a nearly 25-year history of Flash, as Adobe prepares to officially end support and distribution of Flash Player in December 2020  —  Before Flash Player sunsets this December, we talk its legacy with those who built it.  —  Few technologies have yielded such divisive and widespread passion as Flash.
Arielle Pardes / Wired:
The Police Data Accessibility Project, which started on Reddit, aims to aggregate all public police records into one easily searchable, open source database  —  The Police Data Accessibility Project aims to request, download, clean, and standardize public records that right now are overly difficult to find.
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Samsung announces its next Galaxy Unpacked event for August 5, to be held virtually, where the Galaxy Note 20 lineup and Galaxy Fold's successor are expected  —  Time for a new Galaxy Unpacked event  —  Samsung has announced that its next Galaxy Unpacked event will take place on Wednesday, August 5th, at 10AM ET.
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Microsoft Teams vs. Slack: Teams is a part of Microsoft's vision to build an OS for the cloud whereas Slack is building an enterprise social network via Connect  —  On November 2, 2016, Microsoft announced Teams at a special event in New York City.  Slack decided to mark the occasion:
Diane Bartz / Reuters:
Sources: FTC and Justice Department are looking into allegations TikTok failed to live up to a 2019 agreement to protect children's privacy  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Justice Department are looking into allegations that popular app TikTok failed …
Gwyn Topham / The Guardian:
Uber to launch a commuter boat service this summer in London in partnership with Thames Clippers, branded as Uber Boat, and bookable through Uber's app  —  US firm will buy naming rights for fleet and piers, and users can book journeys on its app  —  Uber is to extend its reach in London …
Angus Loten / Wall Street Journal:
Report: nearly 70K tech startup employees worldwide have lost jobs since March, including over 25.5K in the San Francisco region  —  Layoffs among tech startups reflect economic fallout of Covid-19  —  Technology startups have been laying off tens of thousands of workers to cope …
More: PYMNTS.com
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Instagram will start letting users pin up to three comments on their posts, after testing the feature in May  —  To help users highlight positive replies and better moderate abusive ones  —  Instagram on Tuesday started the official rollout of its pinned comment feature …
Tom Simonite / Wired:
A look at how AI companies like Synthesia are creating corporate-friendly uses for deepfakes, like creating multilingual, personalized training videos  —  Coronavirus restrictions make it harder and more expensive to shoot videos.  So some companies are turning to synthetic media instead.
Paul Mozur / New York Times:
Facebook, Telegram, Google, and Twitter say they have suspended requests for user data from Hong Kong police, following a new national security law by China  —  The social network said it would review the city's punitive new national security law, a rare public questioning of Chinese policy by a large American tech company.
The Guardian:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Amazon Fire TV adds live content from Sling TV, YouTube TV, and Hulu + Live TV  —  Amazon is upgrading its Fire TV's live TV experience through new integrations with several live TV streaming services, including Sling TV, YouTube TV, and Hulu + Live TV.  Live content from these services …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Tinder tests video chat in select markets including the US, wants calls to be free of nudity and hate speech, with a retroactive ratings system for moderation  —  Tinder announced this morning it will begin to test video chat in its mobile dating app with some members in select worldwide markets …
More: CNN and The Verge

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:
Fast, affordable law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
Deep dive into SalesIQ's Summer '26 release: 40+ features for the agentic era  —  We've already introduced you to Zoho SalesIQ's Summer '26 release, our annual release, and the one where SalesIQ enters a new territory: the era of agentic intelligence.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

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.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
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.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
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.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
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.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
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.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:06 AM ET, July 8, 2020.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Earlier Picks

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Jason Del Rey / Vox:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: