Techmeme
August 27, 2020, 1:25 PM

Top News

Dan Primack / Axios:
Walmart says it is working with Microsoft on the TikTok deal, sources say with the idea of turning TikTok US into an e-commerce app for creators and users  —  Microsoft is working with Walmart on its efforts to buy TikTok's U.S. business from China's ByteDance, Axios has learned from multiple sources close to the process.
Financial Times:
TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer resigns, sources say after Trump threatened to ban the app; Vanessa Pappas, currently general manager of TikTok, will become interim head  —  Former Disney executive resigns just months after appointment by Chinese video platform  —  Kevin Mayer has quit TikTok …
Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Sources: TikTok likely to announce a sale of US, Canada, Australia, and NZ operations in a deal worth $20B to $30B as soon as next week  —  - TikTok is nearing an agreement to sell its U.S., Canadian, Australian and New Zealand operations in a deal that could be announced as soon as next week, sources say.
The Wrap:
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
Facebook users reported Kenosha Guard's Page and event to Facebook before the shootings but were told it did not violate its policies; the Pages are now gone  —  Multiple users reported the account for inciting violence, but were told it did not violate platform policy
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Amazon announces Halo, a $99.99 fitness band with an app to track emotional tone and create 3D scans for body fat, with a $3.99/month subscription service  —  It makes a 3D model of your body and tracks the emotional tone in your voice  —  Amazon is getting into the health gadget market …
Rafat Ali / Skift:
A few lessons for the events industry from digital turning points in music, video, and news industries, as Zoom transforms events like Napster changed music  —  All types of business events are in danger of their revenue streams of tickets, sponsorships, memberships, and other types of fees being eroded.
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Facebook warns publishers that Apple's upcoming privacy changes in iOS 14, which clamp down on ad tracking IDFA usage, will make Audience Network less effective  —  Facebook is warning advertisers that they can expect weaker ad performance from iPhone users once iOS 14 comes out next month …
Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios:
SEC approves new NYSE rules that will let companies raise capital through direct listings, a technique that Spotify and Slack used  —  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday approved the New York Stock Exchange's rule change that will allow companies to raise new capital as part of a direct listing.
Bloomberg:
Counterpoint: Apple's AirPods are expected to sell 82M pairs this year, but their worldwide market share of true wireless earphones will drop from ~50% to 35%  —  - AirPods maker is projected to sell 82 million pairs this year  — Wider market growing even faster, driven by cheaper models
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Epic says Fortnite gamers on iOS and macOS will not be able to play the game's next season, arriving Thursday, and will lose cross-play with non-Apple platforms  —  Apple players are losing cross-play  —  Fortnite's next season arrives tomorrow, but if you're on iOS or macOS, you won't be able to play it, Epic announced today.
Ari Levy / CNBC:
Salesforce to cut ~1,000 jobs, 1.8% of its workforce, including some Tableau employees, and will give those affected 60 days to find a new role in the company  —  - The cuts amount to about 2% of Salesforce's workforce, but employees affected will have 60 days to find a new position at the company.
Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch:
CDN provider Fastly to acquire security monitoring and management company Signal Sciences for $775M  —  Los Angeles was always more than a one industry town, even when it comes to technology startups, but media and entertainment (and social networking) were always the big draws in tinseltown.
Igor Bosilkovski / Forbes:
ChartHop, which provides charts to companies about their employees including data such as ethnicity and base compensation, raises $14M Series A led by a16z  —  Organizational platform ChartHop, which provides companies with visual charts that include various data points about their employees …
More: FinSMEs
Daniel Cooper / Engadget:
Fairphone debuts modular €469 Fairphone 3+ with 40% recycled plastics, launching on September 14; Fairphone 3 users can upgrade camera module for €70  —  Fairphone is a Dutch social enterprise that's trying to improve supply chain and labor conditions in the tech industry.
Don Clark / New York Times:
Sources say problems at Intel are likely to delay the DoE's exascale supercomputer project, which was scheduled to be installed near Chicago in 2021  —  The chip maker was selected for an Energy Department project meant to show American tech independence.  But problems at Intel have thrown a wrench into the effort.
Tweets: @donal888

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference  —  Stop preparing for agents.  Start running them.  100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
Zoho Books levels up with Apple Intelligence  —  The best accounting experience isn't really attainable if your software can't keep up with evolving technologies, is it?  That's why Zoho Books made sure to jump …
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

Sources:
Baseten's CEO on why every company will want to own its AI
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Training Data:
Box's Aaron Levie: On Reinventing Yourself in the AI Age and Enterprise Diffusion
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Andrew Feldman from Cerebras
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Acquired:
The Home Depot
Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.
Subscribe to Acquired.
Big Technology Podcast:
Special Report: Will AI Wipe Out Humanity? (And Who Profits)
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:
The Atlantic's CEO on AI, Billionaire Owners, and Moonlighting as a Creator
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 1:25 PM ET, August 27, 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

Substack Blog:
David McLaughlin / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Dan Primack / Axios: