Techmeme
September 18, 2020, 6:00 PM

Top News

Steve Kovach / CNBC:
Commerce Department announces that it will ban US downloads of and business transactions with TikTok and WeChat on Sunday  —  - The Commerce Department announced it will ban U.S. business transactions with China-owned social apps WeChat and TikTok on Sunday.
More: Wall Street Journal, U.S. Department of Commerce, Reuters, New York Times, The Verge, Reuters, CNN, Engadget, TechCrunch, The Next Web, Threatpost, CyberScoop, TechCrunch, CNET, Fortune, Ars Technica, Bloomberg, BBC, NBC News, Axios, Wired, Bloomberg, VentureBeat, Tom's Hardware, Business Insider, The Verge, GeekWire, Popular Mechanics, Adweek, PingWest, Android Headlines, Investor's Business Daily, Daring Fireball, Reuters, Gamasutra, Slate, Observer, WRAL TechWire, Developer Tech News, Pocket-lint, Tubefilter, Android Central, Decrypt, International Business Times, Neowin, SlashGear, Fortune, Droid Life, Tom's Guide, Computer Business Review, PYMNTS.com, Game Rant, ZDNet, Bloomberg, Washington Post, MacRumors, NBC Bay Area, TalkAndroid.com, Deadline, 9to5Mac, Pocketnow, iPhone Hacks, Digital Trends, Politico, MacDailyNews, iDownloadBlog.com, and TweakTown News
Jason Koebler / VICE:
Banning TikTok from US app stores but allowing it to operate until Nov. 12 prevents TikTok from patching any security vulnerabilities found in the meantime  —  Any TikTok vulnerabilities patched by ByteDance will continue to persist for Americans and Americans only under Trump's new TikTok ban.
Ina Fried / Axios:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Google pulls India's Paytm app from Play Store ahead of the Indian Premier League cricket tournament; sources say for repeatedly violating its gambling policies  —  Google has pulled Indian financial services app Paytm from the Play Store for repeatedly violating its policies.
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
Epic says it will end macOS support for Fortnite: Save the World on September 23  —  Epic and Apple's squabble will pull the plug on Mac support for this PvE version of ‘Fortnite.’  —  Fortnite: Save the World — a castle building players-vs-zombies version of the game that preceded …
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
DOJ charges six people who allegedly bribed Amazon employees and contractors since at least 2017 in a scheme to benefit some third-party sellers  —  - The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday charged six individuals who allegedly bribed Amazon employees and contractors …
Michael Steeber / 9to5Mac:
Apple says it will open its online store in India on September 23  —  Apple announced today that it plans to open its online store in India on September 23.  The expansion will bring direct sales and an improved shopping experience to customers in the region for the first time.
Hugh Son / CNBC:
Neobank Chime raises $485M Series F at a $14.5B valuation; CEO says the startup will be IPO-ready within the next 12 months  —  - Chime, the start-up that delivers banking services through mobile phones, has closed a fundraising that values the company at $14.5 billion, CNBC has learned exclusively.
David Jeans / Forbes:
CEO of fraud detection startup NS8 arrested by the FBI on charges of misleading investors who invested $123M in his company, a deal in which he earned $17M+  —  The CEO of a startup that sold fraud prevention software is facing fraud charges after he was arrested Thursday by the FBI in Las Vegas.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
NBCU threatens to pull its TV Everywhere channels from Roku as early as this weekend amid Peacock negotiations  —  Late Thursday, Comcast-owned NBCUniversal notified Roku that the media company plans to force Roku to remove access to NBCU's TV Everywhere channels on the Roku platform, including the flagship NBC app.
New York Times:
In August Facebook said it will crackdown on QAnon, but analysis shows QAnon is flourishing on the site, at times aided by Facebook's recommendation engine  —  The social network tried cracking down on the spread of the conspiracy theory and other extremist material.  But QAnon groups are still flourishing on the site.
Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch:
Outschool, a marketplace for online classes, raises $45M Series B, says bookings grew 2,000%+ between Aug. 2019 and Aug. 2020 and it turned profitable this year  —  Outschool, which started in 2015 as a platform for homeschooled students to bolster their extracurricular activities …
Fred Wilson / AVC:
It makes no sense for two large and powerful companies like Apple and Google to completely control software distribution on mobile phones and it must stop  —  I have written extensively on this blog over the last decade and a half about the significant negative consequences …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Interview with Ilkka Paananen, CEO of mobile game maker Supercell, on Tencent's majority stake, attempting to create another hit franchise, and team building  —  Mobile games maker Supercell has been one of the great, understated, breakthroughs of the European startup world.
Rob Walker / Marker:
Despite a shift to remote work amid COVID-19, Slack is having a hard time living up to its hype, as layoffs and slowed hiring from clients undercut its billings  —  In the war for the remote office, why isn't the hyped messaging app pulling a Zoom?  —  It's no secret that the arrival …

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Earlier Picks

Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer: