Techmeme
July 9, 2020, 8:00 PM

Top News

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Sony invests $250M in Epic Games for a 1.4% stake, bringing the total raised by the maker of Fortnite to $1.83B  —  Sony has invested $250 million for a minority stake in Fortnite maker Epic Games, the companies announced today.  With the new money, Epic Games has raised $1.83 billion to date.
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Epic Games releases an iOS app, called Live Link Face, enabling the recording of facial expressions directly into the Unreal Engine  —  Using Apple's ARKit and the iPhone's TrueDepth camera  —  A newly released iOS app from Epic Games lets developers record facial expressions …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Hands-on with iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 as they launch in public beta with a new home screen with widgets on the iPhone, a Scribble feature for Apple Pencil, more  —  There are so many new features that it's hard to keep track  —  In anticipation of today's release of the public betas of iOS 14 …
Anirban Sen / Reuters:
Sources: Coinbase is exploring going public via a direct listing as early as this year; Coinbase was last valued at $8B+ in 2018  —  Anirban Sen, Joshua Franklin, Anna Irrera  —  (Reuters) - Coinbase Inc has started plans for a stock market listing that could come as early as this year …
Alfred Ng / CNET:
UK and Australian data privacy offices say they are opening a joint investigation of Clearview AI  —  The facial recognition company is being scrutinized over its database of 3 billion photos.  —  The governments of the UK and Australia are investigating a facial recognition company …
Sam Biddle / The Intercept:
Sources: Dataminr, an official Twitter partner, relayed tweets and other social media posts about BLM protesters directly to police, contrary to earlier claims  —  Leveraging close ties to Twitter, controversial artificial intelligence startup Dataminr helped law enforcement digitally monitor …
Nico Grant / Bloomberg:
Google scrapped a campus security system asking employees to check each other's badges, sources say after complaints Black and Latinx workers were singled out  —  - Company encouraged staff to check colleagues' ID badges  — System scrapped after workers complained to CEO Sundar Pichai
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Gartner and IDC see YoY growth in Q2 PC shipments, 2.8% and 11.2% respectively, with both firms seeing the gains as short-term, driven by work-from-home demands  —  After years of bad news, PC shipments saw growth in 2019, only to have the coronavirus pandemic cut the celebration short in Q1 2020.
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
In a first, the CENTRE Consortium has blocked an Ethereum address holding $100K USDC stablecoin in response to a law enforcement request  —  The CENTRE Consortium blacklisted a USDC address in response to a law enforcement request, freezing $100,000 worth of the stablecoin, a spokesperson said Wednesday.
Bloomberg:
Elon Musk claims Tesla is “very close” to developing fully autonomous vehicles despite Tesla's “Full Self Driving” feature not living up to its name since 2016  —  - The billionaire says it'll have basics worked out this year  — Tesla's in an industry race to develop fully self-driven cars
Joseph Cox / VICE:
Police are buying access to hacked data, including passwords, IP addresses, and more to help with investigations in an end-run around the usual legal processes  —  The sale is “an end-run around the usual legal processes.”  —  Joseph Cox  —  Hackers break into websites, steal information …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: DOJ is examining whether Wirecard played a critical role in an alleged $100M bank fraud conspiracy connected to an online marijuana marketplace  —  Federal prosecutors, FBI examining Wirecard's work as payment processor, merchant bank in alleged $100 million fraud involving cannabis company
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
TikTok says it took down 49M+ videos globally for content violations during H2 2019 and again claims it received no takedown requests from China  —  TikTok's second transparency report offers more details on video removals  —  TikTok took down more than 49 million videos from users across …
John Hendel / Politico:
As his chairmanship hits its fourth year, Ajit Pai has alienated the auto industry, lawmakers, and Trump allies, with decisions like opening 6GHz for Wi-Fi  —  In moving to free up Wi-Fi and bolster superfast service, Pai has alienated some industries, congressional committees and Trump Cabinet leaders.
Vox:
Facebook audit shows holding Trump to a different standard than other users sets a troubling precedent, valuing free speech above all else impedes civil rights  —  The new, deeply critical report highlights the tension between free expression and hate speech on the social network.
Mike Isaac / New York Times:

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More News

Sue Halpern / New Yorker:

Earlier Picks

Nick Statt / The Verge:
Washington Post:
Ina Fried / Axios:
Chuong Nguyen / Digital Trends: