Techmeme
August 5, 2022, 5:45 PM

Top News

Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Amazon plans to acquire Roomba maker iRobot in a $1.7B all-cash deal; Colin Angle will remain as iRobot's CEO  —  Amazon this morning announced plans to acquire Roomba maker iRobot for an all-cash deal valued at $1.7 billion.  —  “Since we started iRobot, our team has been on a mission …
Nikkei Asia:
Nikkei Asia:
After Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, sources say shipments to Pegatron's factory, used by Microsoft, Tesla, and others, were being held by Chinese customs  —  Suppliers spooked as Beijing wields rule against ‘Taiwan’ label on goods  —  TAIPEI — Shipments to iPhone assembler Pegatron's factory …
The Verge:
After criticism, DuckDuckGo says its browser will now block Microsoft tracking scripts on third-party websites, formerly exempt due to a search syndication deal  —  After an uproar over an exception, DuckDuckGo is promising transparency.  —  After a revelation in May that DuckDuckGo's …
James Vincent / The Verge:
Meta's AI research lab releases its BlenderBot 3 chatbot, which searches the internet to answer questions, available to US users on the web, to collect feedback  —  What could possibly go wrong?  —  Meta's AI research labs have created a new state-of-the-art chatbot and are letting members …
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Twitter confirms that a now-patched bug was used to link phone numbers and emails to user accounts; a threat actor offered to sell 5.4M records in December 2021  —  Twitter has confirmed a recent data breach was caused by a now-patched zero-day vulnerability used to link email addresses …
Omer Benjakob / Haaretz:
A prototype of NSO's Pegasus for Israeli police in 2014 reveals the UI and features, including real-time wiretapping, reading texts, and remote camera control  —  Israel Police planned to present cabinet with the system eight years ago.  It was intended to be capable of turning the infected phone …
Nicola Kelly / The Guardian:
The UK government plans to require migrants convicted of a crime to scan their faces up to five times per day using smartwatches; locations will be tracked 24/7  —  Home Office and MoJ plans will require migrants convicted of crimes to take photos up to five times a day
Nupur Anand / Reuters:
India's Enforcement Directorate freezes the assets, worth ~$8.16M, of Binance-owned crypto exchange WazirX, citing suspected foreign exchange rule violations  —  India's financial crime-fighting agency said on Friday that it has frozen the assets of WazirX, owned by the world's largest digital …
Elena Schneider / Politico:
A look at FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried's range of US political contributions, including $10M+ to back Biden in 2020, and uncertainty about his goals and leanings  —  NASSAU, Bahamas — One of the biggest donors in Democratic politics this year isn't sure if he really wants to be a Democratic megadonor — at least not on the party's terms.
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
CoinDesk:
How crypto developer Ian Macalinao posed as 11 independent developers and faked a web of DeFi protocols to temporarily inflate the total value locked on Solana  —  The Macalinao brothers used a web of bogus identities to create the illusion of a dev community, juicing value on the Saber protocol and Solana blockchain.

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Featured Podcasts

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Hard Fork:
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The Upstarts Podcast:
Blitzy's Brian Elliott: Cursor And Claude Code Are Looking At Your Enterprise Code 'Through A Straw'
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The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
Re-Release: The Death of Hollywood? W/ Allan Loeb
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
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More News

Joanna Ossinger / Bloomberg:
Andrew Romero / 9to5Google:

Earlier Picks

Soma Biswas / Wall Street Journal:
Michelle Price / Reuters:
Michael del Castillo / Forbes:
Nelson Wang / CoinDesk:
Dan Primack / Axios:
Oliver Knight / CoinDesk:
Bloomberg: