Techmeme
January 4, 2021, 9:20 AM

Top News

Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch:
A group of over 200 Google and Alphabet workers have announced their plan to form a union, open to both employees and contractors  —  A group of more than 200 Google and Alphabet workers have announced their efforts to form a union.  With the help of Communication Workers of America Union's Campaign …
New York Times:
Executives of the Alphabet Workers Union say discrimination and harassment continue and the company cracks down on those who are to speak out  —  Our company's motto used to be “Don't be evil.”  An organized work force will help us live up to it.  —  Ms. Koul and Mr. Shaw are, respectively …
New York Times:
Sources: investigators are checking if SolarWinds was hacked via its offices in Czechia, Poland, and Belarus, where the company moved much of its engineering  —  Those behind the widespread intrusion into government and corporate networks exploited seams in U.S. defenses and gave away nothing to American monitoring of their systems.
The Verge:
Samsung announces its Galaxy Unpacked event will be held on January 14, where it's expected to unveil the Galaxy S21, S21 Plus, and S21 Ultra  —  Ring in 2021 with Samsung's latest smartphones  —  Samsung will officially be announcing its latest lineup of Galaxy flagship phones …
Elian Peltier / New York Times:
A British judge rules against extraditing Julian Assange to the US, which has accused him of violating the Espionage Act, citing mental health concerns  —  The WikiLeaks founder, who is currently jailed in Britain, had been indicted in the United States on 17 charges of violating the Espionage Act.
William C. Gustafson / GitHub:
Developer of Amphetamine says Apple agreed to let the Mac app stay up with its current name and logo, after previously threatening to remove it due to its name  —  Amphetamine is a free app that helps keep your Mac awake.  Amphetamine has been on the Mac App Store since 2014 and it's been downloaded over 432,800 times.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Researchers: more than 100K Zyxel firewalls and VPN gateways have a hardcoded admin-level backdoor that can grant attackers root access to devices  —  The username and password (zyfwp/PrOw!aN_fXp) were visible in one of the Zyxel firmware binaries.  —  More than 100,000 Zyxel firewalls …
Gabrielle Coppola / Bloomberg:
Aeva, a lidar company started by two Apple engineers, says it is raising $200M at a ~$3B valuation from a Hong Kong-based hedge fund ahead of reverse merger  —  - Deal values Aeva around $3 billion ahead of reverse merger  — Volkswagen shareholder Porsche SE is strategic investor
Hannah M. Mayer / Forbes:
How GPT-3 may reshape the AI and SaaS space, with OpenAI's commercial API creating a unique dependence on a closed AI model, and empowering “citizen developers”  —  The global artificial intelligence (AI) community rocked excitedly in their home office chairs in anticipation …

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