Techmeme
August 30, 2020, 11:15 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Internal postings show Ankhi Das, a top Facebook exec in India, supported “strongman” Modi's party before he was elected in 2014 and disparaged its main rival  —  Some employees said the sentiments and actions conflicted with the company's longstanding neutrality pledge
Fred Lambert / Electrek:
Tesla releases new software update to visually detect speed limit signs, and more  —  Tesla has started pushing a new version of its software update to now visually detect speed limit signs, and more.  —  For a while, there has been speculation about to what degree Tesla …
Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
A look at autonomous boat tech as ocean research nonprofit Promare says it will unveil in September a fully autonomous ship called Mayflower with IBM as partner  —  Driverless ships don't have to worry about crowded roads.  And they don't need bunks—or toilets.  —  TEXT  —  1 RESPONSE
Jack Morse / Mashable:
Slack discloses a now fixed critical RCE flaw in its desktop app; Slack paid $1,750 bug bounty to researcher, which critics say is a paltry sum  —  Slack and its scores of desktop app users just dodged a major bullet.  —  The communications tool relied upon by journalists, tech workers …
Cory Doctorow / OneZero :
Cory Doctorow highlights the conceptual limitations of Shoshana Zuboff's “surveillance capitalism” and details how to dismantle it  —  The most surprising thing about the rebirth of flat Earthers in the 21st century is just how widespread the evidence against them is.
Dara Kerr / CNET:
How a law professor became the target of posts on conservative sites, social media harassment, and PR firms hired by gig economy companies, for supporting AB5  —  Labor activists are targeted in a social media campaign as gig economy companies spend millions to prevent workers from becoming employees.
Jacob Bunge / Wall Street Journal:
How the startup Farmers Business Network is trying to disrupt the largely brick-and-mortar $40B US farm supply business, while agri giants refuse to play along  —  Farmers Business Network faces pressure from big suppliers as it tries to grow its online platform
Karen Hao / MIT Technology Review:
Online creators are creating deepfake memes as the technology grows more accessible, and publishing YouTube instructions so others can learn how  —  The rapidly increasing accessibility of the technology raises new concerns about its abuse.  —  Grace Windheim had heard of deepfakes before.
Fanny Potkin / Reuters:
A look at the rapid growth of TikTok in Southeast Asia, where the app has been downloaded 360M times, up 151% YoY, according to Sensor Tower  —  SINGAPORE (Reuters) - At 19, Sandy Saputra is big on TikTok Indonesia.  Within a year, he's leapt from quiet, small-town life to star influencer status …
Coco Liu / Nikkei Asian Review:
China updates its export control list, adding AI tech including “personalized content recommendations based on data analysis”, which may affect TikTok US sale  —  Popular video app's powerful algorithm likely to face ‘dual-use’ restrictions  —  HONG KONG — Beijing …
Wall Street Journal:

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More News

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Earlier Picks

Todd Shields / Bloomberg:
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac: