Techmeme
August 2, 2020, 2:00 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Microsoft, which was in advanced talks to buy the US operations of TikTok, has paused negotiations after Trump said on Friday that he opposes the deal  —  Talks aren't believed to be dead, but the companies are trying to get clarity on White House's stance
Echo Wang / Reuters:
Sources: ByteDance has agreed to divest US operations of TikTok under a proposed new deal with the White House that would see Microsoft take over TikTok in US  —  NEW YORK (Reuters) - China's ByteDance has agreed to divest the U.S. operations of TikTok completely in a bid to save a deal with the White House …
CNBC:
More: NBC News, Vox, Constine's Moving …, The Verge, CCN.com, Bloomberg, Pocketnow, MacRumors, The Verge, Social Media Today, NBC News, Gizmodo, The Hill, The Daily Dot, Slate, CNN, Techdirt, Reuters, 9to5Google, Digital Trends, Washington Post, AppleInsider, TechCrunch, Los Angeles Times, Variety, BBC, TechRadar, BuzzFeed News, Fossbytes, CNET, Pocket-lint, Associated Press, Axios, Fortune, Business Insider, news.com.au, CBS News, Gizmodo, Bloomberg, Engadget, Ubergizmo, Wired, Newser, TechSpot, PYMNTS.com, dexerto.com, Tubefilter, Neowin, and iPhone in Canada Blog
Elaine Low / Variety:
Profile of Netflix's Bela Bajaria, who is leading the company's content growth outside of the US as its VP of local language originals  —  She relished the development process and reading the latest drafts of scripts, which she calls the most formative part of her early Hollywood education.
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Researchers describe how attackers can sidestep security features of chip-based credit and debit cards from certain banks to create counterfeit cards  —  Chip-based credit and debit cards are designed to make it infeasible for skimming devices or malware to clone your card when you pay …
New York Times:
Ad analytics platform Pathmatics: Facebook's top 100 advertisers spent $221.4M from July 1 through July 29, down 12% YoY from the $251.4M they spent in 2019  —  Major advertisers on Facebook reduced their spending by millions of dollars in July, but not enough to significantly damage the platform's revenue.
Sam Chambers / The Sunday Times:
Sources: Apple told some landlords of UK stores it wants rent reduction of up to 50% and a rent-free period, offering to extend leases by a few years in return  —  Apple is pushing for huge rent reductions across its UK stores despite its sales soaring to new heights during the lockdown.
Renee DiResta / Wired:
AI-generated “textfakes”, masked as regular chatter on Twitter and Facebook, can be potentially far more subtle and sinister than deepfake videos or audiofakes  —  Synthetic video and audio seemed pretty bad.  Synthetic writing—ubiquitous and undetectable—will be far worse.
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
TechHub, a co-working space that was once the heart of London's start-up scene, filed for administration  —  Workspace was the busy centre of the UK's ‘Silicon Roundabout’  —  TechHub, which for a decade was home to hundreds of start-ups at the heart of London's “Silicon Roundabout” tech scene, has filed for administration.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Court documents show how FBI used a leaked copy of the OGUsers forum database, user details from Discord, and data from Coinbase to track down Twitter hackers  —  A timeline of the Twitter hack composed from court documents published today.  —  After earlier today US law enforcement charged …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26  —  Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Zoho:
The best time to become a Zoho Partner  —  The business world is not only changing but it is being rebuilt.  Customers want connected ecosystems that will help them automate, unify their data, and do more with less.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's 2026 Priority, Disney's AI Play, Datacenter Buildout Trouble
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.
Hard Fork:
Australia Kicks Kids Off Social Media + Is the A.I. Water Issue Fake? + Hard Fork Wrapped
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Access:
Why the next AI frontier is phone calls, with Beside CEO Maxime Germain
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Great Chat:
So what happens after AGI?
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Lachlan Cartwright Started in Tabloids. Now He's a Must-Read Media Gossip.
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:00 PM ET, August 2, 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

Charlie Osborne / ZDNet:

Earlier Picks