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December 22, 2019, 6:10 PM
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| New York Times: |
US officials say ToTok, a chat app gaining popularity around the world, is a spying tool by the government of UAE; Google and Apple have now removed the app — ToTok, an Emirati messaging app that has been downloaded to millions of phones, is the latest escalation of a digital arms race.
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Engadget, AppleInsider, and Axios
| The Verge: |
The 84 biggest flops, fails, and dead dreams of the 2010s, from the Fire phone and Google Glass to the undoing of net neutrality in the US — A decade of failures — The world never changes quite the way you expect. But at The Verge, we've had a front-row seat while technology …
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Philip Elmer‑DeWitt. Tweets: @frankpasquale, @karlbode, @thoughtwax, @carnage4life, @citnaj, @yoerigeutskens, @chudson, @snazzyq, @leimer, @brockkeeling, @dane, @caseynewton, and @starfire2258
| Reuters: |
US Navy bans TikTok from government-issued mobile devices citing a cybersecurity threat, will block devices with the app from the Navy Marine Corps Intranet — (Reuters) - Earlier this week the United States Navy banned the social media app TikTok from government-issued mobile devices …
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9to5Mac, Engadget, LarrysWorld.com, SlashGear, TweakTown News, CNET, Yahoo Finance, and iMore
Tweets: @zeh, @akinunver, @benbajarin, @lanceulanoff, and @lukolejnik
| Wired: |
San Francisco's municipal surveillance law, which banned city agencies from using facial recognition in May, amended to allow for Face ID on city-issued iPhones — San Francisco quietly amends its municipal surveillance law to allow for Apple's Face ID, though the ban on facial recognition still applies.
More:
Engadget and Techdirt
Tweets: @tsimonite, @mmasnick, @tsimonite, @miniver, @cathyhackl, @wired, and @scottthurm
| Davey Alba / New York Times: |
Facebook and Twitter shut down a network of fake accounts using AI-generated faces to “masquerade” as Americans; Facebook links the network to Epoch Media Group — Researchers said the profiles, linked to the Epoch Media Group, used photos generated by artificial intelligence in a preview of an …
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Tech Times, About Facebook, Twitter, Washington Post, CNN, Snopes.com, mathewingram.com/work, The Epoch Times, NBC News, CNET, Mashable, Engadget, Graphika, KnowTechie, Wired, Axios, The Verge, The Hill, Boing Boing, Wall Street Journal, The Daily Beast, Financial Times, CBS San Francisco, Input, CNET, TechCrunch, Seeking Alpha, Gizmodo, Reclaim The Net, and Variety
Tweets: @vinnysgreen, @brandyzadrozny, @pr_johnson, @aza, @apolyakova, @dabeard, @ericfish85, @snopes, @glcarlstrom, @maddowblog, @lexialex, @ddknyt, @ndiakopoulos, @bobbychesney, @negarmortazavi, @jabdi, @hxhassan, @cbouzy, @karankanishk, @olivia_gazis, @snopes, @snopes, @debunker, @heathercampbell, @toddlevin, @z_everson, @marshallk, @amy_siskind, @poppy_haze, @oneunderscore__, @kevinroose, @camillefrancois, @maddoxrules, @donie, @camillefrancois, @ericfish85, @hunterschwarz, @profcarroll, @moira, and @yoyoel
| Matt Brown / Jalopnik: |
California DMV to start approving permits for self-driving delivery vehicles, with and without backup drivers, from Jan. 17, both for testing and commercial use — Are you ready to be stuck in traffic behind armies of autonomous delivery robots? No? Well good news: if you live in California …
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The California Department of Motor Vehicles, The Verge, CNBC, Mash Viral, The Spoon, Digital Trends, Autoblog, and The Robot Report. Tweets: @halfonjesse
| Sarah Nassauer / Wall Street Journal: |
Sources: Walmart is considering new growth strategies like selling shopper data to advertisers and renting out edge computing capacity in retail “supercenters” — Walmart is betting on a future where its giant stores will quickly get groceries to your door … | New York Times: |
Text messages show how the head of DOJ antitrust division Makan Delrahim steered the T-Mobile-Sprint deal and played a crucial role in getting Dish involved — Text messages indicate that Makan Delrahim, the head of the Justice Department's antitrust division, worked behind the scenes to help the companies pull off a deal.
More:
New York Times, Bloomberg, and Reuters
Tweets: @hshaban, @heynottheface, @loudmouthjulia, @jason_kint, @opinion_joe, and @reckless
| The Verge: |
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Reuters, Market Realist, Seeking Alpha, and MacDailyNews
Tweets: @trengriffin, @halsinger, @reckless, @kellymakena, and @backlon
| Sidney Fussell / The Atlantic: |
How a new class of online lending apps, which promise to “advance” users' wages, are much the same as traditional payday lenders — Apps promising to “advance” a user's wages say they aren't payday lenders. So what are they? — Jonathan Raines needed money. An app promised to help.
Tweets: @aflemingesq, @hypervisible, @theatlantic, and @martinsfp
| Reuters: |
German classifieds group Scout24 agrees to sell its European automotive digital marketplace, AutoScout24, to private equity firm Hellman & Friedman for $3.2B — German classifieds group Scout24 said on Tuesday it had agreed to sell AutoScout24 to private equity investor Hellman & Friedman …
| Rebecca Heilweil / Vox: |
A look at New York City's slow attempts to increase transparency around its use of algorithms, which govern many policy areas, including policing — The Traffic Management Center for New York, located in Queens. Two tools used by the Department of Transportation were reviewed … | Kit Chellel / Bloomberg: |
Profile of Daniel Kaye, also known as Spdrman, once one of world's most wanted hackers who took down Liberia's internet; he will be out of a London prison soon — Daniel Kaye, also known as Spdrman, found regular jobs tough but corporate espionage easy. He's about to get out of prison.Sponsor Posts
Subquadratic:
SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work — Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.
SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work — Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.
Zoho:
Update on Node.js vulnerabilities CVE-2026-111497, CVE-2026-105482, CVE-2026-105483 and CVE-2026-106069 — Overview On October 21, 2026, Node.js announced security releases for the 26.x, 24.x and 22.x release lines to fix multiple vulnerabilities.
Update on Node.js vulnerabilities CVE-2026-111497, CVE-2026-105482, CVE-2026-105483 and CVE-2026-106069 — Overview On October 21, 2026, Node.js announced security releases for the 26.x, 24.x and 22.x release lines to fix multiple vulnerabilities.
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.
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.
WebBrain:
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser — Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox. Use local models or your preferred AI provider. Get started free.
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser — Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox. Use local models or your preferred AI provider. Get started free.Featured Podcasts
Big Technology Podcast:
Big Tech's Ugly Week, Getting Rich At Anthropic, AI Costs Plunge
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Machine Gods:
OpenAI's Latest Discoveries Spark a Backlash + Help! My Kid Hates AI
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
Subscribe to Machine Gods.
The Upstarts Podcast:
The Accidental YC Founder Solving AI's GPU Crisis | SF Compute's Evan Conrad
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.
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Cheeky Pint:
Why Sam Altman is against a single superintelligence
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
Great Chat:
The case for AI optimism
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
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Sources:
Tobi Lütke on the AI agent revolution and future of Shopify
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
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