Techmeme
September 5, 2020, 4:05 PM

Top News

Sean Hollister / The Verge:
In court filing, Epic says Fortnite has 116M iOS users, a third of the game's 350M users, and iOS DAUs declined by 60%+ since its removal from the App Store  —  Epic is formally asking for a preliminary injunction  —  Shortly before midnight on the Friday before Labor Day weekend …
Karen Hao / MIT Technology Review:
Q&A with AI Now Institute's Amba Kak on the organization's new report detailing eight case studies of how biometric ID systems are regulated around the world  —  A new report from the AI Now Institute reveals how different regulatory approaches work or fall short in protecting communities from surveillance.
Jeremy B. Merrill / ProPublica:
Facebook's ban on political ads in the week prior to the election applies to election officials, who use Facebook to inform voters about the voting process  —  ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.  Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they're published.
Slate:
Amazon Web Services:
Amazon responds to JEDI decision, calling it a “politically corrupted contract award” and attacks Trump's role in steering the award away from AWS  —  Earlier today, the DoD announced it had concluded its corrective action and affirmed its prior JEDI contract award to Microsoft.
Aaron Gregg / Washington Post:
Pentagon reaffirms its controversial decision to give JEDI cloud contract to Microsoft; Amazon is likely to continue its legal challenge  —  The Pentagon reaffirmed its controversial decision to give its largest-ever cloud computing contract to Microsoft instead of to market-leader Amazon …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Facebook is testing displaying Instagram Stories directly in the main Facebook app; the test requires users opt in and link their accounts together  —  Only your Instagram followers can see your stories in Facebook  —  Some Facebook users have recently noticed that they can now watch …
Aroon Deep / MediaNama:
To pre-empt government censorship, 15 OTT services in India, including Disney Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and MX Player adopt a self-regulation code  —  Fifteen Indian streaming services and digital content companies have adopted a self-regulation code to pre-empt government censorship …
Zeynep Tufekci / The Atlantic:
In an attempt to open during the pandemic, many US universities are forcing students to download location-tracking apps, sometimes as a condition of enrollment  —  In Michigan, a small liberal-arts college is requiring students to install an app called Aura, which tracks their location in real time, before they come to campus.
Laura Hautala / CNET:
A look at how scientists, firefighters, and first responders are using advanced computer models to better map, track, and predict the movements of wildfires  —  Fire-predicting software can project how a fire could spread — while it's still burning.  —  The wildfire burned through pine trees …

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Earlier Picks

Dave Lee / Financial Times:
Financial Times:
Patrick McGee / Financial Times: