Techmeme
November 19, 2020, 2:15 PM

Top News

Nick Statt / The Verge:
Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming service launches in beta on iOS as a web app, bypassing Apple's App Store and letting iOS users play Fortnite  —  Nvidia joins Microsoft in bypassing Apple's App Store  —  Nvidia is joining its fellow cloud gaming providers in choosing to bypass Apple's App Store …
Damien Wilde / 9to5Google:
Google says Stadia is coming to iOS as a Safari PWA within “several weeks”  —  Apple's tough enforcement of its App Store policies has led to a sad lack of a playable version of Google Stadia on iOS.  That is set to change very soon as public testing of a dedicated progressive web app …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google says it has completed a global rollout of RCS and will start testing end-to-end encryption in Android Messages  —  In mid-2019, Google decided to take over and speed up the launch of RCS.  A little over 17 months later, Google announced today that it has completed a global rollout of RCS …
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Sources: state and federal investigators are preparing to bring antitrust charges against Facebook for buying rivals Instagram and WhatsApp  —  State and federal investigators are preparing to bring antitrust charges against Facebook that will challenge the tech giant's acquisition of two rivals …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Adam Satariano / New York Times:
Wall Street Journal:
BuzzFeed has agreed to acquire Verizon Media's HuffPost in a stock deal, as part of a larger agreement to syndicate content on each others' platforms  —  New-media companies have been exploring mergers as they try to jumpstart growth  —  BuzzFeed Inc. has agreed to acquire Verizon Media's HuffPost …
Sebastiaan de With / Halide:
iPhone 12 Pro Max's camera achieves images of quality previously only seen in dedicated cameras that have sensors four times its size  —  At Halide HQ, we've been busily working away on a very deep, technical analysis of what's new in iPhone 12 cameras this year.  All four of 'em.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft Edge now has coupon and promo codes built in for online shopping  —  Edge also gets new PDF annotation and screenshot inking features  —  Microsoft is adding a new coupons feature to its Edge browser today.  Coupons and promo codes will appear inside Edge as an alert when you're shopping online …
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
The second-gen version of Echo Frames, Amazon's Alexa-enabled glasses that debuted last year for some customers, will be available generally on Dec. 10 for $250  —  - Amazon on Thursday said it's making the Echo Frames available to the general public, after launching the device last year …
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
The M1 Macs are astonishingly good and Rosetta is the exemplification of “it just works”, but the iOS app experience ranges from terrible to OK, at best  —  Better necessarily implies different.  —  That's one of my favorite axioms.  It's both intuitively and undeniably true.
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
YouTube says channels of all sizes may now see ads on them, though only creators big enough to qualify for its Partner Program will be paid any ad revenue  —  The company is rolling it out on a ‘limited number of videos’  —  Starting today, YouTube will begin running ads on some creators' videos …
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Go SMS Pro, an Android messaging app with 100M+ installs, is exposing photos, videos, and other files sent privately by its users  —  Go SMS Pro, one of the most popular messaging apps for Android, is exposing photos, videos and other files sent privately by its users.  Worse, the app maker has done nothing to fix the bug.
Reuters:
Kid-focused gaming platform Roblox has titles and user profiles with profanities and other offensive content despite moderation efforts  —  (Please note paragraph four contains language some readers might find offensive)  —  BANGALORE/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Profanities and other offensive content …
Mary Ann Azevedo / FinLedger:
Affirm files its draft S-1 for an IPO; in its fiscal year ending June 30, 2020, Affirm's revenue was $509.5M, up ~93% YoY, while net losses fell to $112.6M  —  Buy now, pay later innovator has over 6.2 million consumers on its network  —  Alternative payments provider Affirm Holdings …
Monica Chin / The Verge:
Pixelmator releases Pixelmator Pro 2.0, which will run natively on Macs with M1, says features like ML Super Resolution will be up to 15x faster on the new Macs  —  Plus, a big redesign  —  Pixelmator has announced Pixelmator Pro 2.0, the newest update to the image-editing software Pixelmator Pro.
Scott Zamost / NBC News:
Criminals launder COVID-19 relief money through Venmo, Cash App, PayPal and other apps; so far 80 have been charged with trying to steal $240M+ from the PPP  —  Criminals are laundering illegally obtained funds meant for Covid-19 relief through the most popular apps for legally sending and receiving money …
More: Input and CNBC
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google unveils major redesign for Google Pay for iOS and Android and partners with 11 banks to launch a mobile-first bank accounts service called Plex in 2021  —  Google is launching a major redesign of its Google Pay app on both Android and iOS today.  Like similar phone-based contactless …

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Jake Bright / TechCrunch:
Eric Geller / Politico:
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: