Techmeme
November 12, 2020, 7:45 PM

Top News

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple releases macOS 11 Big Sur with a redesigned interface, new Control Center, redesigned Notification Center with widgets, and more  —  After nearly five months of beta testing, macOS 11 Big Sur is now available to the general public.  Big Sur is a massive update for the Mac …
Andrew Griffin / The Independent:
Interviews with Apple's Greg Joswiak, Craig Federighi, and John Ternus on the development of M1, the future of Macs, buying version one hardware, and more  —  Exclusive: Apple's hardware, software and marketing chiefs explain how the company's new processors came to exist  —  Apple's new M1 chip is a lot of things.
Ars Technica:
Many Mac users experienced app slowdowns during the launch of Big Sur, possibly due to issues with Apple's OCSP service being unable to validate certificates  —  Even Macs that didn't upgrade to Big Sur had problems.  —  Mac users today began experiencing unexpected issues …
Reuters:
Sources: top US cybersecurity official Christopher Krebs told associates he expects to be fired, after CISA refused to delete content debunking election misinfo  —  WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Top U.S. cybersecurity official Christopher Krebs has told associates he expects to be fired …
Wall Street Journal:
Commerce Department stays its TikTok shutdown order, citing a federal court's ruling last month in Philadelphia  —  Commerce Department retreat follows federal court ruling, which the U.S. appealed Thursday  —  WASHINGTON—The Commerce Department said Thursday it wouldn't enforce its order …
BuzzFeed News:
At all-hands, Zuckerberg said that Biden won the election, Bannon violated policies but not enough to shutter his account, Facebook isn't adverse to legislation  —  As false claims declaring that Joe Biden isn't the president-elect flourish on his platform, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees …
Kate Conger / New York Times:
Twitter says it labeled 300K election-related tweets from Oct. 27 to Nov. 11 as disputed, accounting for 0.2% of all messages about the election  —  Twitter said on Thursday that it labeled as disputed 300,000 tweets related to the presidential election, or .2 percent of the total number …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Guido van Rossum, the creator of Python, says he has come out of retirement to join Microsoft's Developer Division  —  Guido van Rossum, the creator of the Python programming language, today announced that he has unretired and joined Microsoft's Developer Division.
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Apple HomePod mini review: has a compact design, is affordable, and Siri is fast, but doesn't sound as good as similarly priced competitors  —  Apple's newest smart speaker is way more affordable but still chasing Amazon and Google  —  Two and a half years ago, Apple finally entered the smart speaker market with the HomePod.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Facebook brings Vanish Mode, its Snapchat-like feature for disappearing messages, to Messenger and Instagram  —  Facebook today announced its new Snapchat-like feature for disappearing messaging, Vanish Mode, is arriving on Messenger and Instagram.  The feature, meant for more casual conversations …
Shawna Chen / Axios:
Trump signs an EO prohibiting US companies and individuals from owning shares in 31 Chinese companies previously listed as enabling the PLA, effective Jan. 11  —  President Trump signed an executive order Thursday prohibiting American companies and individuals from owning shares …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Chinese President Xi Jinping, furious about Jack Ma's criticisms of regulators, personally made the decision to stop Ant Group's IPO  —  Senior government leaders were furious about wealthy entrepreneur's criticisms of regulators; rebuke was the culmination of years of tense relations
Will Oremus / OneZero :
Google's free unlimited Photos storage offer is an object lesson in anticompetitive behavior that helped drive startups like Everpix and Loom out of the market  —  A new policy perfectly illustrates a core issue across the industry  —  After five years of Google Photos offering unlimited …
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Facebook redesigns Instagram's layout to add dedicated tabs for shopping and Reels in the navigation bar, after testing the change in September  —  Instagram is redesigning the layout of its home screen to emphasize shopping and Reels.  The company introduced a new design that gives shopping …
Stephanie Sengwe / The Streamable:
Disney says Disney+ had 73M+ paid subscribers at the end of September, up from 57.5M at end of June and 60.5M in early August  —  Disney+ reported today that they have now reached 73.7 million subscribers at the end of September.  This is a 16.2 million climb from last quarter …
Michael McSweeney / The Block:
PayPal says it is opening up cryptocurrency services to all eligible US users and increased its weekly cryptocurrency purchase limit from $10,000 to $20,000  —  PayPal said Thursday that it is opening up its nascent cryptocurrency services to all eligible U.S. users.
Ari Levy / CNBC:
Palantir reports post-IPO earnings with Q3 revenue of $289.4M vs est. of $279.4M, up 52% YoY, and says it has secured new contracts with the US Army and NIH  —  - The software and analytics company went public in September, 17 years after it was co-founded by Peter Thiel, CEO Alex Karp and others.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
YouTube defends choice to leave up election misinformation videos, saying such videos are “not being surfaced or recommended in any prominent way”  —  The company says its most popular videos are from ‘authoritative’ sources  —  YouTube is pushing back against claims its platform …

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Earlier Picks

Mike Allen / Axios:
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times: