Techmeme
October 24, 2019, 1:45 PM

Top News

Washington Post:
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Tom Cotton ask US intelligence officials to determine whether TikTok poses “national security risks”  —  Two senior members of Congress, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) …
Ana Swanson / New York Times:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Twitter misses Q3 estimates with revenue of $823.7M, up 9% YoY vs. $874M expected; 145M monetizable DAUs, up 17% YoY; stock down 18%+  —  Twitter today reported its earnings for the quarter that ended September 30, and the numbers delivered a big surprise, falling on both sales and earnings per share.
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple TV app launches on Amazon Fire TV devices starting with the Fire TV Stick 4K and HD models, with support for other devices and models coming soon  —  Apple today released the Apple TV app for Amazon TV devices, starting with the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K and the older HD model.
Paris Martineau / Wired:
New report says the proliferation of right-wing content on YouTube is driven by both supply and demand rather than the platform's recommendation algorithm  —  In a new report, Penn State political scientists say that it's not the recommendation engine, but the communities that form around right-wing content.
Brendan Sinclair / GamesIndustry.biz:
As Google opens its first gaming studio in Montreal, head of Stadia Jade Raymond discusses its strategy, including building several first-party studios  —  As Google unveils new Montreal development studio, Stadia Games & Entertainment boss Jade Raymond discusses the platform strategy
BBC:
BBC News launches dark web mirror of its international site, accessible via Tor, as it seeks to thwart censorship from states such as China, Iran, and Vietnam  —  The BBC has made its international news website available via Tor, in a bid to thwart censorship attempts.
Lauren Kaori Gurley / VICE:
Forty music festivals including SXSW, Coachella, and Bonnaroo promise they will not use facial recognition tech, following a musician- and activist-led campaign  —  Activists declare the first major victory against the spread of commercial facial recognition technology in the United States.
Ryan Gallagher / Bloomberg:
Google employees accuse the company of making an internal tool to monitor attempts to organize meetings; Google says it's only to prevent calendar spam  —  - Company says it's an effort to curb calendar, meeting spam  — Allegation underscores tensions between employees, leadership
Jim Baker / Lawfare:
Former FBI general counsel explains why US law enforcement needs to embrace encryption to protect the country against existential cybersecurity threats  —  I. Embrace Reality and Deal With It  —  From 2012 to 2014, I worked for Bridgewater Associates, a hedge fund located in Connecticut.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
AT&T says a weeks-long voicemail outage affecting some customers across the country is due to a software update, promises a patch but offers no timetable  —  It's telling a different story elsewhere  —  AT&T has been experiencing a weeks-long voicemail outage affecting some customers across the country.
iFixit News:
Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 (15") teardown: seems pretty repairable with an easily accessible SSD, but there's one big drawback: its battery is firmly glued down  —  Teardown of the Surface Laptop 3 reveals a shocking turnaround in repairability on what used to be our least-favorite laptop design.
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
At a hearing on Libra, Mark Zuckerberg was grilled by House lawmakers from both parties on the proposed cryptocurrency, privacy, diversity, and misinformation  —  The social media giant's chief executive took an early lashing Wednesday over the company's policies to spot and prevent the spread disinformation.
Stephen Shankland / CNET:
Samsung unveils Exynos 990, its new flagship SoC that's 20% faster overall and 2x faster on AI-specific tasks, and a new 5G modem, both made with a 7nm process  —  If you buy next year's flagship Samsung Galaxy phone, it might come with a performance boost from a new processor the Korean electronics giant announced Wednesday.
Alexi McCammond / Axios:
Memo from a departing chief of White House security lays out how an ongoing reorg under the Trump administration has left its networks more vulnerable to attack  —  An internal memo on cybersecurity, obtained by Axios, warns that “the White House is posturing itself to be electronically compromised once again.”
Cade Metz / New York Times:
Google claims “quantum supremacy” after its Sycamore processor completed a calculation in 3 min 20 sec that would take 10K+ years on today's supercomputers  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Google said on Wednesday that it had achieved a long-sought breakthrough called “quantum supremacy,” …
Microsoft:
Microsoft reports Q1 revenue of $33.1B, up 14% YoY, as net income rises 21% YoY to $10.7B; Intelligent Cloud revenue rose 27% YoY to $10.8B, driven by Azure  —  REDMOND, Wash. — October 23, 2019 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the quarter ended September 30 …

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