Techmeme
July 29, 2020, 5:00 PM

Top News

YouTube:
Livestream of the House Antitrust Subcommittee hearing on online platforms and market power with the CEOs of Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Apple  —  TW: @HouseJudiciary |  FB: HouseJudDems |  IG: HouseJudDems |  M: /HouseJudiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law |
Washington Post:
Live blog of the House's antitrust hearing focused on Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Apple  —  The leaders behind Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are testifying before Congress virtually  —  Congress on Wednesday is starting to grill the top executives from Amazon, Apple …
New York Times:
At the hearing, Bezos, Cook, Zuckerberg, and Pichai will argue their businesses are relatively small, exist in competitive environments, and benefit consumers  —  The C.E.O.s are likely to argue before Congress that their companies aren't anticompetitive.  Here are the facts.
Peter Kafka / Vox:
Big Tech's antitrust hearing is largely theater, producing soundbites with little bearing on rule-changing and law-making, but it's still a valuable spectacle  —  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifying before Congress in October 2019.  Aurora Samperio/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Bloomberg:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
The Amazon Blog:
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
The Verge:
Emails from Mark Zuckerberg, revealed by the House antitrust panel, show that Facebook wanted to buy Instagram at least partly to explicitly avoid competition  —  In late February 2012, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg emailed his chief financial officer, David Ebersman, to float the idea …
Sara Fischer / Axios:
TikTok's new CEO Kevin Mayer says it'll release code driving its content moderation algorithms, accuses Facebook of maligning attacks “disguised as patriotism”  —  In his first public statement as CEO of TikTok, f ormer Disney exec Kevin Mayer says the company will be releasing …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Google and Samsung are working on a deal to give Google services more prominence on Samsung devices, discussing the roles of Bixby, Play Store, search  —  - Google Assistant, Play app store may gain more prominent roles  — Samsung seeks other revenue sources as handset demand drops
Reuters:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Spotify reports Q2 revenue of €1.89B, up 13% YoY, with MAUs up 29% YoY to 299M, premium users up 27% to 138M, and ad-supported MAUs up 31% to 170M  —  In addition, ad revenue fell 21% — which Spotify blamed on the coronavirus pandemic — but the drop wasn't quite as bad as forecast.
Sabahatjahan Contractor / Reuters:
US prosecutors are seeking 27 months in prison for ex-Uber executive Anthony Levandowski, who pleaded guilty in March to taking sensitive documents from Google  —  (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors are seeking 27 months of imprisonment for the former head of Uber's self-driving technology unit …
Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:
Instrumental, which uses vision-powered AI to detect manufacturing anomalies, raises $20M Series B led by Canaan Partners  —  This morning Instrumental, a startup that uses vision-powered AI to detect manufacturing anomalies, announced that it has closed a $20 million Series B led by Canaan Partners.

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Featured Podcasts

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Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's Bots Break Containment and Hack Hugging Face Autonomously — With Alex Stamos
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
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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.
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Marc Santora / New York Times:
Sam Shead / CNBC: