Techmeme
August 13, 2021, 3:50 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Craig Federighi says introducing two similar features, iMessage protections for children and CSAM scanning of iCloud photos, at the same time caused confusion  —  Facing criticism about eroding privacy on the iPhone, Apple's Craig Federighi says new tools aimed at best ensuring privacy while fighting illegal images
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Apple details its CSAM detection system, says it expects to set a match threshold of 30 known CSAM images before an iCloud account is flagged for manual review  —  Apple today shared a document that provides a more detailed overview of the child safety features that it first announced last week …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Memo: Apple warns staff to be ready for questions about CSAM scanning, says it will address privacy concerns by having an independent auditor review the system  —  - The threshold for the system to warn Apple is about 30 images  — Company also says it will have independent auditor for feature
Kris Holt / Engadget:
Facebook rolls out end-to-end encrypted voice and video calls on Messenger, and says it will begin testing opt-in e2e encryption for Instagram DMs  —  rolling out a host of features for Messenger users who switch on  —  end-to-end encryption (E2EE).  You can now call Messenger contacts using voice or video
Reuters:
Poly Network offers a $500K “bug bounty” to the hacker who returned $340M+ in assets and placed the rest in a wallet jointly controlled by the hacker and Poly  —  Poly Network, the cryptocurrency platform which lost $610 million in a hack earlier this week, confirmed on Friday …
Gillian Tan / Bloomberg:
Divvy Homes, which buys homes on behalf of renters and helps them become owners, raises $200M at a $2B valuation, co-led by Tiger Global and Caffeinated Capital  —  - San Francisco company seeks to enable renters to own homes  — Caffeinated Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, GIC also invested
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
Researchers at Berlin-based AlgorithmWatch say they abandoned their research project monitoring the Instagram algorithm after legal threats from Facebook  —  A chilling echo of NYU ad observatory issues  —  Researchers at AlgorithmWatch say they were forced to abandon their research project monitoring …
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Twitter again pauses applications to its verification program, after admitting that several fake accounts, reportedly part of a botnet, were wrongly verified  —  It wants to improve the application and review process  —  Twitter is once again putting a halt on applications to its verification program …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Disney+ beats Q3 subscriber estimates, reaching 116M subscribers vs. 114.5M expected; ESPN+ subscribers rose 75% YoY to 14.9M, Hulu grew 21% YoY to 42.8M  —  Disney's streaming service is seeing improved growth, after initially seeing slower numbers of subscriber additions in Q2 as Covid lockdowns and mask mandates came to an end.
Rachel Feintzeig / Wall Street Journal:
A half-dozen white-collar workers, in industries like tech and banking, say they are stealthily holding multiple remote, full-time jobs  —  When the pandemic freed employees from having to report to the office, some saw an opportunity to double their salary on the sly.
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
Reddit says it is rolling out a TikTok-like video feed on its iOS app  —  From Instagram's Reels to Snapchat's Spotlight, most social media platforms are looking toward the TikTok boom for inspiration.  Now, even Reddit, a discussion-based forum, is making short-form video more pronounced on its iOS app.
Hirsh Chitkara / Protocol:
Illustrators say Corporate Memphis, an art aesthetic synonymous with tech marketing, has stuck around because execs continue to overlook the value of their work  —  You may not have heard of “Corporate Memphis,” but you've almost certainly seen it.  The illustration style can be found …

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More News

Rory Smith / New York Times:
Maia Szalavitz / Wired:
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:

Earlier Picks

Bloomberg:
Joseph Cox / VICE:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Nathan Grayson / Washington Post:
Naman Ramachandran / Variety:
Simon Evans / Reuters: