Techmeme
July 8, 2020, 7:40 AM

Top News

Free Press:
After meeting between leaders of Facebook, ADL, Free Press, NAACP, and Color Of Change, boycott organizers are unconvinced meaningful change will occur  —  WASHINGTON — On Tuesday afternoon, leaders of four of the organizations coordinating the #StopHateForProfit advertising boycott met …
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
An independent audit commissioned by Facebook harshly criticizes the company, arguing that some of its decisions were “significant setbacks for civil rights”  —  An independent audit faulted the social network for “vexing and heartbreaking decisions” that affect its users — and potentially the November elections.
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
Code in the second developer beta of iOS 14 reveals a hidden and unannounced feature in the Wallet app that would allow payments with QR codes using Apple Pay  —  Apple today released the second developer beta of iOS 14 with some small changes across the system.
Tom Simonite / Wired:
A look at how AI companies like Synthesia are creating corporate-friendly uses for deepfakes, like creating multilingual, personalized training videos  —  Coronavirus restrictions make it harder and more expensive to shoot videos.  So some companies are turning to synthetic media instead.
Diane Bartz / Reuters:
Sources: FTC and Justice Department are looking into allegations TikTok failed to live up to a 2019 agreement to protect children's privacy  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Justice Department are looking into allegations that popular app TikTok failed …
Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Samsung announces its next Galaxy Unpacked event for August 5, to be held virtually, where the Galaxy Note 20 lineup and Galaxy Fold's successor are expected  —  Time for a new Galaxy Unpacked event  —  Samsung has announced that its next Galaxy Unpacked event will take place on Wednesday, August 5th, at 10AM ET.
Richard C. Moss / Ars Technica:
A retrospective on a nearly 25-year history of Flash, as Adobe prepares to officially end support and distribution of Flash Player in December 2020  —  Before Flash Player sunsets this December, we talk its legacy with those who built it.  —  Few technologies have yielded such divisive and widespread passion as Flash.
The Guardian:
Paul Mozur / New York Times:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Instagram will start letting users pin up to three comments on their posts, after testing the feature in May  —  To help users highlight positive replies and better moderate abusive ones  —  Instagram on Tuesday started the official rollout of its pinned comment feature …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Unacademy acquires PrepLadder, which offers medical education courses online, for $50M, as Unacedemy and Byju's eye edtech consolidation in India with more M&A  —  Indian online learning platform Unacademy said on Tuesday it has acquired Chandigarh-based startup PrepLadder for $50 million …
Carolyn Said / San Francisco Chronicle:
Uber drivers in Southern California and Sacramento can now set their own fares, higher or lower than Uber's existing rates, in response to AB5 state law  —  Uber is letting drivers in Southern California and Sacramento set their own fares, a feature it will soon bring to the Bay Area and the entire state.
Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
A group of best-selling authors is teaming up with Amazon in filing a lawsuit against Kiss Library, which they claim sold unauthorized ebooks of their work  —  A group of best-selling authors is teaming up with Amazon in a lawsuit that aims to bring down an alleged counterfeit e-book …
More: TorrentFreakThanks:@toddbishop
Jason Del Rey / Vox:
Sources: Walmart+, a $98/year Amazon Prime rival, will launch in July, with same-day delivery, discounts at Walmart gas stations, reserved delivery slots, more  —  After announcing a number of improvements to its online shopping experience, Walmart is now taking aim at Amazon Prime membership.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Comcast plans to invest $2B in Peacock by 2021, expects it to generate $2.5B in revenue by 2024 with 30M-35M users, says users gravitate to its curated channels  —  In September 2019, Steve Burke, then NBCUniversal chief executive, called Matt Strauss, with a question: Would he take the wheel of the Peacock project?

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Featured Podcasts

Access:
Is Roblox making the internet better or worse? We asked the CEO
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
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Lenny's Podcast:
Why LinkedIn is turning PMs into AI-powered "full stack builders" | Tomer Cohen (LinkedIn CPO)
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Earlier Picks

Casey Newton / The Verge:
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New York Times:
Abdi Latif Dahir / New York Times: