Techmeme
July 8, 2020, 2:50 PM

Top News

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.
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Facebook's Oversight Board says it won't be operational until “late fall”, likely after the US Presidential election  —  Facebook has announced that the limp “Oversight Board” intended to help make difficult content and policy decisions will not launch until “late fall,” which is to say, almost certainly after the election.
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 …
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon 865 Plus processor, designed to boost gaming, AI, and graphics performance by ~10%, expected to ship in phones in Q3  —  10 percent more power than the original Snapdragon 865  —  Qualcomm has announced a refreshed version of its flagship Snapdragon 865 processor called …
Apple:
Apple expands its Independent Repair Provider Program to hundreds of new locations in the US and opens up to businesses in Europe and Canada  —  Independent Repair Provider Program also opens to businesses across Europe and Canada  —  Apple is expanding its Independent Repair Provider Program …
Ina Fried / Axios:
Microsoft announces Together Mode for Teams, which overlays group call participants onto the same virtual background, and adds meeting transcripts and more  —  As the pandemic continues to reshape office work, Microsoft is adding new features to Teams that aim to make video calls more human …
Angus Loten / Wall Street Journal:
Reports: nearly 70,000 tech startup employees worldwide have lost jobs since March, including over 25,500 in the San Francisco region  —  Layoffs among tech startups reflect economic fallout of Covid-19  —  Technology startups have been laying off tens of thousands of workers to cope …
More: PYMNTS.com
April Glaser / NBC News:
Report: US DOD and federal law enforcement have thousands of previously unreported contracts with Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Dell, IBM, HP, and Facebook  —  Over the past two years, thousands of tech company employees have taken a stand: they do not want their labor and technical expertise …
Ryne Hager / Android Police:
A slide from a YouTube video posted by Google for its Smart Home Summit suggests Android 11 will launch on September 8; the date fits with Google's timeline  —  Android 11 appears to have a launch date set, according to a video published by Google for the recent “Hey Google” Smart Home Summit.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
A job listing suggested Twitter is working on a new “subscription platform” under a team codenamed “Gryphon”, although most details remain unclear  —  A mysterious new Twitter subscription team, codenamed ‘Gryphon’  —  Twitter appears to be working on a subscription platform for its social networking service.
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Linux distribution company SUSE acquires Rancher Labs, which develops Kubernetes container management software, sources say for $600M-$700M  —  - SUSE, a Linux distribution company controlled by private equity firm EQT, has agreed to acquire Rancher Labs, a start-up with technology …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Microsoft Teams vs. Slack: Teams is a part of Microsoft's vision to build an OS for the cloud whereas Slack is building an enterprise social network via Connect  —  On November 2, 2016, Microsoft announced Teams at a special event in New York City.  Slack decided to mark the occasion:
Chuong Nguyen / Digital Trends:
Intel details the Thunderbolt 4 standard coming to laptops later this year: USB4 compatibility, multi-monitor support, and data transfers of up to 40Gbps  —  Intel has detailed some of the biggest features coming to the next generation of its port protocol, known as Thunderbolt 4 …
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.
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.
Arielle Pardes / Wired:
The Police Data Accessibility Project, which started on Reddit, aims to aggregate all public police records into one easily searchable, open source database  —  The Police Data Accessibility Project aims to request, download, clean, and standardize public records that right now are overly difficult to find.
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Boston-based Notarize, a service that lets users sign and notarize official documents digitally, raises $35M Series C led by Camber Creek  —  Notarize, a platform that enables consumers and businesses to sign and notarize official documents digitally, has raised $35 million in a series C round of funding.
David Pierce / Protocol:
Facebook says it has cut greenhouse gas emissions by 59% since 2017, 86% of its operations use renewable energy, as it unveils a heat recycling pilot in Denmark  —  It's investing in renewable energy in a big way, but it's tough to keep up with data center growth.

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Gwyn Topham / The Guardian:

Earlier Picks

Tom Simonite / Wired:
Diane Bartz / Reuters:
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge: