Techmeme
December 16, 2020, 10:25 AM

Top News

Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Facebook attacks Apple in full-page newspaper ads, claiming upcoming iOS 14 changes that limit data gathering and targeted ads are bad for small businesses  —  - Ads criticize Apple's plan to restrict some data gathering  — Facebook placed ads in the NYT, WSJ and Washington Post
Megan Graham / CNBC:
Washington Post:
SolarWinds' top investors Silver Lake and Thoma Bravo sold a combined $286M worth of stock in the company on Dec. 7, six days before the hack was made public  —  The timing of the trades raises questions about whether major shareholders used inside information to avoid stark losses after the attack.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Sources: Microsoft and industry partners seize key command and control domain used in SolarWinds hack  —  By seizing the domain, Microsoft and its partners hope to identify all victims, but are also preventing attackers from escalating intrusions in currently infected networks.
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Mozilla releases Firefox 84 with native support for Apple M1 Macs, saying the browser launches over 2.5 times faster and web apps are now twice as responsive  —  Mozilla today released Firefox version 84 with native support for Apple Silicon Macs with the M1 chip, touting …
Ryan Mac / BuzzFeed News:
At an end-of-year, company-wide meeting, Facebook said it is working on TLDR, an AI tool that would summarize longform articles in bullet points  —  Facebook told employees on Tuesday that it's developing a tool to summarize news articles so users won't have to read them.
Periscope:
Twitter says it will discontinue Periscope as a separate mobile app by March 2021, after bringing most of the core capabilities of Periscope into Twitter  —  Today, we're sharing that we have made the difficult decision to discontinue Periscope as a separate mobile app by March 2021.
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Australian regulator sues Facebook for allegedly using its Onavo VPN app to spy on users for commercial purposes in 2016 and 2017  —  Yet more trouble brewing for Facebook: Australia's Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is suing the tech giant over its use, in 2016 and 2017 …
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Facebook is building a video product called Super that will let people pay content creators or celebrities to interact with them during a live broadcast  —  - New product ‘Super’ is still being tested at social network  — Facebook is developing more video features during the pandemic
Joseph Menn / Reuters:
Facebook will shift its UK users into user agreements with its HQ in California, instead of its Irish unit, moving them out of reach of EU's privacy laws  —  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc will shift all its users in the United Kingdom into user agreements with the corporate headquarters …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Apple AirPods Max review: high-luxury design, terrific sound quality, and very effective noise cancellation, but they are heavy and the case is an abomination  —  Apple's over-ear headphones have tremendous build quality and sound, but there's no denying they're expensive
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Neverware, which helps schools and enterprises resurrect old PCs with its Chromium-based CloudReady OS, gets acquired by Google, which invested in its Series B  —  Neverware lets you turn old PCs and Macs into Chromebook-esque devices through its CloudReady OS.
Hirsh Chitkara / Protocol:
Interview with Stanford comp lit professor Adrian Daub on the naiveté of undergrads eager to work in tech, “useless” VC Twitter, and challenges to SV narratives  —  In the early 2010s, professor Adrian Daub began noticing changes in some Stanford undergraduates that troubled him.
Matt Burns / TechCrunch:
StockX, an online marketplace for sneakers, raises $257M Series E led by Tiger Global at a $2.8B post-money valuation  —  StockX today announced its Series E funding led by Tiger Global.  The $275 million funding round values the company at $2.8 billion at a post-money valuation.
Tweets: @mi_investments
The Verge:
Google has restored service after a significant number of Gmail users saw “error messages, high latency, and/or other unexpected behavior” for a few hours  —  Stadia was experiencing issues, too  —  Google says that a “significant subset” of Gmail users ran into errors with the service Tuesday afternoon.

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Is AI just hype?  —  Find out how top enterprises use Tribe to get real business results.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
All new Zoho Workerly 2024  —  Staffing businesses around the world face a unique set of challenges when it comes to managing their temporary workforce.  With a constantly shifting job market and changing staffing needs …
Comprehensive.io:
Browse salary data from 3,000 startups for free  —  Click for FREE, immediate access to real-time compensation benchmarking data.  Paid version helps HR automate comp reviews and communicate total compensation to employees.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Henry Shukman, Lessons from an Authentic Zen Master
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 03/28 - Claude 3 Opus Surpasses GPT-4 For The First Time
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:25 AM ET, December 16, 2020.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Craig Timberg / Washington Post:
Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Financial Times: