Techmeme
October 17, 2020, 7:50 PM

Top News

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Thoughts on Apple's “Hi, Speed” event: the iPhone 12 lineup, camera differences, missing chargers and earbuds, focus on 5G and Verizon CEO's cameo, more  —  Last month's “Time Flies” event for the Apple Watch Series 6 and new iPad Air was about an hour long; this week's “Hi, Speed” event ran just a bit longer at 70 minutes.
More: The Verge
Stephen Totilo / Kotaku:
Interview: Microsoft's Phil Spencer on Xbox Series S vs. Series X, Bethesda deal, cross-gen gaming, ballooning game file sizes, and the storage size trade-off  —  There's nothing normal about interviewing Xbox chief Phil Spencer these days.  —  First, there's the location.
Marietje Schaake / Foreign Affairs:
Vijaya Gadde / @vijaya:
[Thread] Twitter updates Hacked Materials Policy, says it won't remove content unless shared by hackers themselves and will label tweets instead of block links  —  Over the last 24 hours, we've received significant feedback (from critical to supportive) about how we enforced our Hacked Materials Policy yesterday. After reflecting on this feedback, we have decided to make changes to the policy and how we enforce it.
New York Times:
Sean Lyngaas / CyberScoop:
Google says Chinese state-linked hacker group, known as APT31, has been using malware on GitHub to upload and download files on networks in targeted attacks  —  Former vice president Joe Biden.  Chinese hackers have unsuccessfully targeted the campaign, according to Google.  (Flickr / Gage Skidmore)
Wired:
18% of games announced by major studios this summer had female protagonists, with Sony accounting for over a third; E3 2019 games had 5% female representation  —  The data on female representation in games looked optimistic—but time will tell if these changes endure beyond a wildcard year.
Tara Seals / Threatpost:
Broadvoice, a VoIP provider for SMBs, has leaked 350M+ customer records, including thousands of voicemail transcripts, many including medical and financial info  —  Broadvoice, a well-known VoIP provider that serves small- and medium-sized businesses, has leaked more than 350 million customer records related …
Morgan Clendaniel / Fast Company:
A look at the pandemic's impact on Nextdoor and how CEO Sarah Friar has attempted to promote the concept of “kindness” amid a tumultuous year for the company  —  The social network for local communities bet on kindness to power it to an IPO.  If only the locals don't ruin it.

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
Copilot to autopilot: Why no single safeguard is enough  —  Microsoft designed a layered model that lets an AI agent resolve network incidents on its own within defined boundaries.
Will Reed:
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Featured Podcasts

The Upstarts Podcast:
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Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
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Great Chat:
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Sources:
Sundar Pichai on Gemini 4 and the AI compute crunch
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.
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Machine Gods:
Bots Behaving Badly + Is AI Regulation On The Right Track + Kevin's Sloppelganger
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
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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.
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Big Technology Podcast:
Google CEO Sundar Pichai: AI's Infinite Possibilities, Compute Scarcity Dilemmas, Future AI Products
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
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More News

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Wall Street Journal:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
BBC:
Apple: