Techmeme
July 23, 2020, 12:45 PM

Top News

Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Twitter says hackers accessed the DM inbox for up to 36 of the 130 high profile accounts targeted in last week's attack  —  Last week's hack of over 100 very high-profile Twitter accounts did in fact expose the direct messages of many of those accounts, the company admitted today …
Brian Fung / CNN:
Jack Dorsey says Twitter is actively exploring additional ways to make money from its users, including through a subscription model  —  Washington (CNN Business)Twitter (TWTR) is actively exploring additional ways to make money from its users, including by considering a subscription model, CEO Jack Dorsey said Thursday.
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Twitter misses Q2 expectations with revenue of $683M, down 19% YoY, but reports 186M mDAUs, up 34% YoY, and ad revenue of $562M, down 23% YoY; stock up 8%+  —  - Twitter reported second-quarter earnings Thursday that missed analyst expectations on revenue, but showed strong growth in users.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Plex launches 80+ free live TV channels across news, sports, film, classic TV, comedy, anime, and more categories, accessible by both free users and subscribers  —  Streaming media platform Plex announced today it's further expanding into live TV with the addition of over 80 free live TV channels accessible …
Bill Ready / The Keyword:
Google Shopping goes commission-free for retailers and adds support for third-party providers, starting with PayPal and Shopify  —  Over the past few months, we've made significant changes to help businesses reach more consumers and help people find the best products, prices and places to buy online.
Eli Blumenthal / CNET:
AT&T says its low-band 5G network is now available to 205M people, joining T-Mobile as a nationwide 5G network  —  The carrier is also adding 5G access to its cheapest unlimited plan.  —  AT&T's 5G network crossed an important milestone Thursday, with the telecom giant announcing …
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Corning announces Gorilla Glass Victus, says it can resist a six-foot drop and has twice the scratch resistance of the previous model  —  Samsung will be the first to feature the new glass  —  Your next Samsung Galaxy or iPhone may soon include the toughest gadget glass Corning has ever created.
ETtech:
Sources: Amazon is in talks to buy a 9.9% stake in Reliance Retail, for a preferred, strategic stake in its e-commerce venture JioMart  —  JioMart, the e-commerce venture of Reliance's retail arm, was launched in May and poses a formidable challenge to Amazon's local unit and Walmart's Flipkart.
James Vincent / The Verge:
Facebook can now simulate the actions of bad actors using AI-powered bots let loose in a parallel version of Facebook that researchers can then study  —  Bad bots roam free in a parallel version of Facebook  —  Facebook's engineers have developed a new method to help them identify …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Nvidia expressed interest about a potential deal for ARM as SoftBank explores a sale; Apple declined to pursue a bid after being approached by SoftBank  —  - SoftBank also approached Apple to gauge its interest in Arm  — Japanese group bought U.K. chip designer for $32 billion
BuzzFeed News:
An inside look at internal strife and dissent within Facebook, as employees warn the company is “hurting people at scale” and reckon with what they've built  —  On July 1, Max Wang, a Boston-based software engineer who was leaving Facebook after more than seven years …
Bloomberg:
Sources: to save TikTok, ByteDance and investors are considering options like selling just TikTok's US business or splitting off ByteDance's international arm  —  - Venture investors urge Zhang to sell a majority stake in app  — Time is running short to avoid a crackdown from U.S. officials
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
NY legislature passes a bill pausing use of facial recognition and other biometric ID tech in schools until 2022, the first such regulation in the US if signed  —  The New York legislature today passed a moratorium banning the use of facial recognition and other forms of biometric identification in schools until 2022.
More: Engadget and WGRZ-TV
Lawfare:
An overview of how COVID-19 contact tracing technology has fared in the US and around the world, as contact tracing apps retreat from the spotlight in the US  —  In May of this year, Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged the United Kingdom would develop a “world beating” …
Microsoft:
Microsoft Q4: revenue up 13% YoY to $38B, net income of $11.2B, down 15% YoY, Intelligent Cloud revenue of $13.4B, up 17%, and Azure revenue up 47%  —  Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the quarter ended June 30, 2020, as compared to the corresponding period of last fiscal year:
Peter Aldhous / BuzzFeed News:
Hackers attacked GEDmatch servers and caused over 1M of its profiles to be opted-in for searching by law enforcement, which were previously opted-out  —  First GEDmatch, the DNA database that helped identify the Golden State Killer, was hacked.  Then email addresses from its users were used …
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Pandora expands interactive voice ads in beta for more listeners and advertisers and allows free users to unlock on-demand music search with their voice  —  Pandora is expanding the scope of its interactive voice-based advertising today, launching the service in beta for more listeners …
Bryan Walsh / Axios:
Facebook VP of AI Jerome Pesenti says OpenAI's GPT-3 can “easily output toxic language that propagates harmful biases”, as some critics point out issues of bias  —  While GPT-3 has earned ecstatic reviews from many experts for its capabilities, some critics have pointed out clear issues around bias.
Jeff John Roberts / Fortune:
Facebook to pay $650M to settle a facial recognition suit in Illinois, after judge says the original settlement of $550M did not adequately punish the company  —  Facebook has agreed to pay a total of $650 million in a landmark class action lawsuit over the company's unauthorized use of facial recognition, a new court filing shows.
Tweets: @caseynewtonThanks:@jeffjohnroberts
Christine Hall / Crunchbase News:
Cybersecurity startup CyCognito raises $30M Series B led by Accel, bringing its total raised to $53M  —  CyCognito, which helps identify and eliminate the critical security risks in an organization's IT ecosystem, secured a $30 million round of Series B funding to expand its unique approach to assessing risk.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Apple starts giving “hacker-friendly” iPhones with a custom and more accessible iOS version to vetted researchers in the iOS Security Research Device program  —  For the past decade Apple has tried to make the iPhone one of the most secure devices on the market.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
UK-based Quantexa, which uses big data intelligence for risk analysis and investigations, raises $64.7M Series C led by Evolution Equity Partners  —  The wider field of cyber security — not just defending networks, but identifying fraudulent activity — has seen a big boost in activity in the last few months, and that's no surprise.

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