Techmeme: Contrary to conservatives' claims, data from 2018-19 shows right-leaning Facebook Pages with over 500,000 likes consistently outperform left-leaning rivals (John Whitehouse/Media Matters for America)

Top News

Amazon says it is opening an office in Hyderabad, India, which will house over 15,000 employees, making it the company's biggest campus in the world — HYDERABAD (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc on Wednesday launched its biggest campus in the world in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad …

More: Times of India, GeekWire, Engadget, The Seattle Times, PYMNTS.com, and Seeking Alpha

Amrita Khalid / Engadget:

Google and Mozilla say they will block the root certificate issued by the Kazakhstan government, which could be used to monitor users, in Chrome and Firefox — Google and Mozilla are taking action against the government of Kazakhstan's efforts to launch a surveillance operation against its own citizens.

More: The Mozilla Blog, ZDNet, TechCrunch, Reuters, Google Online Security Blog, BBC, CNET, Axios, The Next Web, 9to5Mac, Neowin, VICE, IT PRO, SecurityWeek, VentureBeat, The Hacker News, and Wired

Tweets: @wired, @josephfcox, @josephfcox, and @campuscodi

Ryan Smith / AnandTech:

Intel unveils 10th-gen Comet Lake CPUs with up to 6 cores for thin and light laptops, based on its Skylake CPU architecture and 14nm process — Capping off a busy few weeks for processors for Intel, today the company is announcing the second half of their product stack for their low-power 10th generation Core processors.

More: Engadget, The Verge, Ars Technica, Inquirer, Gizmodo, Engadget, PCWorld, PCWorld, VentureBeat, Windows Central, and IGN

Tweets: @jrssnet and @anandtech

Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:

Facebook's conservative bias “audit” draws criticism from both sides after relying on interviews with 130 unnamed conservatives over internal data — Neither Republicans nor civil rights groups are happy.

More: HuffPost and Gizmodo

Tweets: @dellcam, @lam_barrett, @melissaryan, @lam_barrett, @lam_barrett, @libertarianblue, and @danpfeiffer

See also Mediagazer

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Facebook debuts first findings from conservative bias audit led by former GOP senator, says it influenced policy changes like creating a content oversight board

John Whitehouse / Media Matters for America:

Contrary to conservatives' claims, data from 2018-19 shows right-leaning Facebook Pages with over 500,000 likes consistently outperform left-leaning rivals

More: The Interface, Gizmodo, and New York Times. Tweets: @mmfa

Washington Post:

Apple is delaying its plans to limit third-party tracking and ads in kids' apps, which it planned to implement in Sept., after some developers raised concerns — Apple plans to change the rules it has for kids apps, raising concerns among some app developers about the way the tech giant wields power unilaterally over its App Store.

More: Thurrott, Engadget, AppleInsider, iPhone Hacks, 9to5Mac, Cult of Mac, and MacRumors

Tweets: @carnage4life, @reedalbergotti, and @palan57. Thanks:@cremnob

Abner Li / 9to5Google:

YouTube says it is shutting down its Messages feature for mobile and web, introduced in 2017, to encourage usage of posts, comments, and stories — In August 2017, YouTube introduced a “Messages” feature for its mobile apps and later the web. Two years later, the Google video site announced …

More: Android Police, XDA Developers, TechCrunch, Phandroid, Android Authority, Android Central, and Engadget. Tweets: @martinsfp

Nat Levy / GeekWire:

LinkedIn says it blocked or removed 21.6M fake accounts in the first half 2019, of which 19.5M were blocked at the registration stage — LinkedIn blocked or removed 21.6 million fake accounts on its platform from January to June of this year, a sign that the Microsoft-owned social network …

More: CyberScoop, Official LinkedIn Blog, Mercury News, CNET, Social Media Today, Adweek, and The Intercept

Tweets: @tonyajoriley and @thekenyeung

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Google says it has started rolling out AI-powered real-time spelling and grammar check features on Gmail for all G Suite users — Ever been stumped by spelling or sentence syntax while pecking out an email to colleagues? Fortunately for G Suite users, Google will soon introduce improved spelling …

More: G Suite Updates Blog, Fortune, Gizmodo, Android Authority, Inquirer, MSPoweruser, KnowTechie, The Next Web, Android Headlines, PhoneArena, Android Police, 9to5Google, Neowin, and The Verge

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Waymo releases a self-driving open data set with 1,000 segments of 20-second footage in a range of driving conditions, free for non-commercial research — Waymo is opening up its significant stores of autonomous driving data with a new ‘Open Data Set’ it's making available for the purposes of research.

More: Waymo, Engadget, The Verge, VentureBeat, and Mashable

Reuters:

Sources: Alibaba has delayed its up to $15B listing in Hong Kong, initially set to launch in late August, amid growing political unrest — HONG KONG/NEW YORK (Reuters) - China's biggest e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has delayed its up to $15 billion listing …

More: Washington Post, New York Times, The Verge, Market Realist, Fortune, Financial Times, Pandaily, Coinspeaker, Tech in Asia, Seeking Alpha, Nikkei Asian Review, and USA Today. Tweets: @donie

See also Mediagazer

TechCrunch:

A roundup of the 82 companies that launched at Y Combinator's Summer 2019 Demo Day 2, including logistics, e-commerce, real estate, and crypto startups — Team TechCrunch was back for Day 2 of Y Combinator's Summer 2019 Demo Days where we heard from another massive chunk of startups …

More: Howard Lindzon and TechCrunch

Tweets: @rowantrollope and @lucasmtny

Sean Captain / Fast Company:

WeWork offices use the same WiFi password across many locations and employ the weak WPA2 Personal security protocol, creating potential for abuse — The We Company sees itself as a world-changing tech platform. But it's used the same easy-to-guess password and dated Wi-Fi security for years.

Thanks:@mariedomingo

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:

Adult website Luscious left data of 1M+ users exposed, including user email addresses, location data, the content they uploaded, liked, and shared — A popular hentai porn site that promises anonymity to its 1.1 million users left a user database exposed without a password, allowing anyone to identify users by their email addresses.

More: vpnMentor, Threatpost, TechSpot, The Daily Dot, Mashable, Forbes, CNET, Gizmodo, The Next Web, ZDNet, Silicon Republic, and IT PRO. Tweets: @zackwhittaker

Stephanie Condon / ZDNet:

Box unveils Box Shield, a set of native security controls with machine learning-powered threat detection for customers' cloud content, in private beta — With Box Shield, customers get machine learning-powered threat detection, as well as the ability to set classification-based security policies.

More: TechCrunch, SiliconANGLE, and VentureBeat

Lauren Kaori Gurley / VICE:

Lyft has been sued at least seven times in August by women alleging sexual assault by drivers and little action from the company — The ride share giant has been sued at least seven times this month related to rides that allegedly ended with rape or sexual assault.

Tweets: @aishacs and @jason_koebler

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Apple Music launches a new chart, the Shazam Discovery Top 50, powered by Shazam data and featuring songs trending in the US and 10+ other countries — Apple continues to make use of Shazam, the music recognition app it acquired for $400 million in 2018. Earlier this month …

More: Apple Music, Variety, 9to5Mac, iPhone in Canada Blog, Billboard, Music Business Worldwide, MacRumors, AppleInsider, Engadget, iMore, Music Ally, Neowin, and RAIN News

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:

Fast, affordable law for startups — Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better. We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts. Join the waitlist for early access!

F5:

Accelerate AI Adoption at F5's AI Virtual Summit — Learn how to architect, secure, and scale AI for production with real-world insights from industry leaders on June 23. Register now to save your spot.

Zoho:

Zoho RPA named a Leader in the 2026 RPA Technology Value Matrix by Nucleus Research — Zoho RPA has been named a Leader in the 2026 RPA Technology Value Matrix, published by Nucleus Research …

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Access:

A top iPhone app developer reacts to Apple's new Siri

A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.

Subscribe to Access.

Hard Fork:

'Hard Fork' Live, Part 1: Satya Nadella and Cindy Cohn

The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Subscribe to Hard Fork.

The Upstarts Podcast:

TBC's Alex Ksendzovsky: The Neurosurgeon Using Brain Cells To Build Better AI

Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.

Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.

BG2 Pod:

The SpaceX IPO, Fable 5, AI Capex Update & Market Check w/ Gavin Baker, Andrew Fox & Clark Tang

Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.

Subscribe to BG2 Pod.

The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:

All about Interest Rates

Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.

Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI

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.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:30 PM ET, August 21, 2019.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.