Techmeme
September 23, 2020, 12:25 AM

Top News

New York Times:
Facebook removes accounts, groups, and Pages tied to China that posted about US politics; the network was followed by fewer than 3K US accounts  —  The social media campaign was small but targeted all sides of the debate.  Officials said Beijing had not decided whether to wade more directly in the American presidential race.
Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Microsoft says it will exclusively license OpenAI's GPT-3 language model, which will continue to be offered via the Azure-hosted API launched in June  —  Microsoft today announced that it will exclusively license GPT-3, one of the most powerful language understanding models in the world, from San Francisco-based AI startup OpenAI.
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Microsoft debuts new Teams features, including virtual commute, Headspace integration, breakout rooms, and virtual coffee shops for meetings  —  Microsoft today announced a slew of Teams features available now, coming later this year, and even arriving in 2021.
Janko Roettgers / Protocol:
Samsung is launching its ad-supported streaming service Samsung TV Plus, available on Samsung TVs since 2016, on some of its latest mobile phones  —  Samsung is doubling down on free, ad-supported streaming: After turning Samsung TV Plus into a massive success story on smart TVs …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Overview of the state of bundles in 2020 across Netflix, Disney, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft  —  If the famous Jim Barksdale quote is to be believed — the one about there only being two ways to make money in business, bundling and unbundling — then I am long past due for a follow-up to 2017's The Great Unbundling.
Danny Palmer / ZDNet:
Authorities from the US, UK, Germany, Europol, and others arrest 179 during Operation DisrupTor, targeting the sale of illicit goods on the dark web  —  ‘Operation Disruptor’ involved agencies from nine countries and the seizure of over $6.5m in cash and cryptocurrencies as criminals warned law enforcement will track them down.
Joseph Keller / iMore:
The Swift Project announces its language tools are now available for Windows 10  —  Swift is taking flight on Windows.  —  What you need to know  — Swift is seeing its initial release on Windows.  — Developers can now download Swift toolchain images for Windows 10.
More: Swift.org and AppleInsiderTweets: @swiftlang
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google debuts Tables, a work-tracking tool to rival Airtable that can set task-based email reminders, send messages when forms are submitted, manage tasks, more  —  Google's in-house incubator Area 120 is today introducing a new work-tracking tool, Tables, which aims to make tracking projects more efficient by investing in automation.
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
YouTube says it will use AI-powered moderation to automatically age-restrict certain content  —  AI moderation measures will be used to automatically age-restrict certain content  —  YouTube is rolling out more artificial intelligence-powered technology to catch more videos …
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Google says it will pull the plug on paid Chrome extensions over the next year, after temporarily banning them due to fraudulent transactions  —  Earlier this year, Google announced some changes to the Chrome Web Store in an effort to curb malicious extensions.
Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch:
Papa, which connects elderly Americans with virtual and physical companions, raises $18M Series B led by Comcast Ventures, bringing its total raised to $31M  —  The Miami-based startup Papa has raised an additional $18 million as it looks to expand its business connecting elderly Americans …
More: FinSMEs
Abram Brown / Forbes:
Manticore, a Roblox-like startup that enables users to quickly build multi-player desktop games, raises $15M led by Epic, bringing its total raised to $60M  —  Manticore, a new gaming startup with software that enables users to quickly build high-resolution multi-player desktop games …
Peter Slattery / OneZero :
How Spotify's UX decisions have encouraged the growth of adjective-laden generic artist names, enabling a kind of SEO spam for music  —  The platform is filled with search-optimized spammers, and there's no end in sight  —  Welcome to The Cheater's Guide to Spotify, a series about the schemes …
Wall Street Journal:
Large rival companies say Amazon restricts how competing products, like smart speakers and video doorbells, can be advertised, giving Amazon's devices an edge  —  Some makers of smart speakers, video doorbells and other hardware hit roadblocks buying key ads in search results; gadgets made by e-commerce giant get edge
Reuters:
Acesso Digital, a developer of facial recognition and identification technology, raises $107.25M from private equity firm General Atlantic and SoftBank  —  SAO PAULO (Reuters) - U.S. private equity firm General Atlantic LLC and Japan's SoftBank Group Corp 9984.T are leading a 580 million reais …

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Earlier Picks

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Jessica Guynn / USA Today:
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
David McCabe / New York Times: