Techmeme
September 10, 2021, 1:30 AM

Top News

Harry McCracken / Fast Company:
Interview with Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook's plans for smart eyewear, potential privacy issues, lack of AR features, the inadequacies of smartphones, and more  —  Mark Zuckerberg has big plans for smart eyewear.  Facebook's first stab at the idea is not a huge deal—but it avoids privacy pitfalls that could come later.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple has appointed longtime Apple Watch and Health software chief Kevin Lynch as the new head of its Apple Car project after Doug Field's departure  —  - Kevin Lynch replaces Doug Field as head of Apple's car efforts  — Field left Apple's project after three years to work at Ford
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft indefinitely postpones the return to its offices in the US, saying it has “decided against attempting to forecast a new date for a full reopening”  —  The pandemic keeps pushing back Microsoft's plans  —  Microsoft is shelving its plans to fully reopen its US offices next month.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Epic asks Apple to reinstate its Fortnite developer account in S. Korea, after passage of a Korean bill forcing app stores to allow alternative payment systems  —  Following the passing of a bill allowing alternative payment systems on the App Store  —  Epic Games has asked Apple to reinstate …
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Amazon launches the Fire TV Omni Series, its first smart TVs, starting at $410 and shipping in October  —  Amazon is officially in the TV set business.  —  After years of selling Fire TV devices that plug into third-party HDTVs and teaming with TV makers for Fire TV-based products …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Epic to shut down Houseparty, the video chat app it acquired in 2019, in October, along with Fortnite Mode, which uses Houseparty for video chats  —  Houseparty, the social video chat app acquired by Fortnite maker Epic Games for a reported $35 million back in 2019, is shutting down.
Zoe Schiffer / The Verge:
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
Texas governor signs bill banning social media companies with 50M+ MAUs from blocking or restricting people or their content based on their viewpoint  —  The law is an escalation of a conservative critique of Silicon Valley and will likely to face legal challenges from the industry
Jack Nicas / New York Times:
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Hackers leak a list of ~500K Fortinet VPN login names and passwords; a source in the IT security industry says at least some of the leaked credentials are valid  —  A threat actor has leaked a list of almost 500,000 Fortinet VPN login names and passwords that were allegedly scraped from exploitable devices last summer.
Reed Albergotti / Washington Post:
Security researchers say Apple's bug bounty program is undermined by Apple's insular culture, confusion about payments, and long delays in fixing bugs  —  Lack of communication, confusion about payments and long delays have security researchers fed up with Apple's bug bounty program
Svea Herbst-Bayliss / Reuters:
Box stockholders voted to re-elect three board directors, including CEO Aaron Levie, giving a blow to activist investor Starboard, which failed to win any seats  —  Box Inc (BOX.N)won a proxy contest against Starboard Value after the cloud services provider's shareholders backed …
Edward Ongweso Jr / VICE:
Report: since 2004, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook and Twitter have earned $43.8B in contracts with the Pentagon, mostly in relation to the War on Terror  —  A team of researchers have published a new report detailing how Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Twitter have profited from the global campaign of violence.

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Earlier Picks

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Bloomberg:
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