Techmeme
December 26, 2020, 3:55 PM

Top News

MacRumors:
Apple's system status page is showing issues with “iCloud Account and Sign In” since Christmas morning, as users complain about problems with device activation  —  Apple's status page shows an ongoing issue with “iCloud Account and Sign In” since early Christmas morning.
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
2020 has been the beginning of major streaming exclusivity plays, forcing users to pay for four or five services as big studios prioritize their own platforms  —  End-of-year turnover is always rough, and it's going to get worse  —  Two of the biggest movies people want to talk about this week …
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
2020 political campaigns secured emails with physical security keys from a nonprofit working with Google and Microsoft; source says Biden's campaign used keys  —  - Keys from the likes of Google and Yubico became a hit among campaign workers this year, including in Joe Biden's campaign.
Ionut Ilascu / BleepingComputer:
Microsoft's patch for a zero-day privilege escalation Windows bug in June did not fix the vulnerability, which could still be exploited with some adjustments  —  Back in June, Microsoft released a fix for a vulnerability in the Windows operating system that enabled attackers to increase …
Ankit Malhotra / Counterpoint Research:
With 31% market share, MediaTek becomes the biggest smartphone SoC vendor globally in Q3, surpassing Qualcomm, which remains the largest 5G chipset vendor  —  - More than 100 million smartphones were sold globally with MediaTek chipsets in Q3 2020.  — Qualcomm led the market for 5G chipsets in Q3 2020.
Andrew Davis / Bloomberg:
Report: Facebook closed Irish subsidiary and moved billions in profits back to US following IRS suit; Irish subsidiary paid $101M in tax on $15B profit in 2018  —  Facebook Inc. has moved to wind down several Irish holding companies that had allowed it to shift billions of dollars in profit to the country …
More: The Times
Sarah Fallon / Wired:
Profile of Ray Holt, who in the 1960s jointly developed the F-14 Tomcat's Central Air Data Computer, considered by some to be the first microprocessor  —  In a weird way, I've known Ray Holt all my life, but I never knew what he had accomplished—or how his inventions wove their way into my own family.
Nicole Sperling / New York Times:
As streaming platforms like Netflix have grown, political films they used to seek out, like The Dissident, on the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, are being shunned  —  Bryan Fogel's examination of the killing of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi had trouble finding a home among the companies …
Yuan Yang / Financial Times:
European tech executives and diplomats privately complain US sanctions on Huawei shut them out of the Chinese market while offering exceptions for US companies  —  Business says EU groups are losing out on licences to sell to blacklisted Chinese companies  —  European tech executives …

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More News

Sara Morrison / Vox:
Washington Post:

Earlier Picks

Nicole Carpenter / Polygon:
Dipayan Ghosh / Wired:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: