Techmeme
July 23, 2020, 10:55 AM

Top News

Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Twitter says hackers accessed the DM inbox for up to 36 of the 130 high profile accounts targeted in last week's attack  —  Last week's hack of over 100 very high-profile Twitter accounts did in fact expose the direct messages of many of those accounts, the company admitted today …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Plex launches 80+ free live TV channels accessible by both free users and subscribers with news, sports, film, classic TV, comedy, anime, and more  —  Streaming media platform Plex announced today it's further expanding into live TV with the addition of over 80 free live TV channels accessible by free users and subscribers alike.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Nvidia expressed interest about a potential deal for ARM as SoftBank explores a sale; Apple declined to pursue a bid after being approached by SoftBank  —  - SoftBank also approached Apple to gauge its interest in Arm  — Japanese group bought U.K. chip designer for $32 billion
James Vincent / The Verge:
Facebook can now simulate the actions of bad actors using AI-powered bots let loose in a parallel version of Facebook that researchers can then study  —  Bad bots roam free in a parallel version of Facebook  —  Facebook's engineers have developed a new method to help them identify …
Microsoft:
Microsoft Q4: revenue up 13% YoY to $38B, net income of $11.2B, down 15% YoY, Intelligent Cloud revenue of $13.4B, up 17%, and Azure revenue up 47%  —  Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the quarter ended June 30, 2020, as compared to the corresponding period of last fiscal year:
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Twitter misses Q2 expectations with revenue of $683M, down 19% YoY, but reports 186M mDAUs, up 34% YoY, and ad revenue of $562M, down 23% YoY  —  - Twitter reported second-quarter earnings Thursday that missed analyst expectations on revenue, but showed strong growth in users.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
NY legislature passes a bill pausing use of facial recognition and other biometric ID tech in schools until 2022, the first such regulation in the US if signed  —  The New York legislature today passed a moratorium banning the use of facial recognition and other forms of biometric identification in schools until 2022.
More: Engadget and WGRZ-TV
Lawfare:
An overview of how COVID-19 contact tracing technology has fared in the US and around the world, as contact tracing apps retreat from the spotlight in the US  —  In May of this year, Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged the United Kingdom would develop a “world beating” …
Bryan Walsh / Axios:
Facebook VP of AI Jerome Pesenti says OpenAI's GPT-3 can “easily output toxic language that propagates harmful biases”, as some critics point out issues of bias  —  While GPT-3 has earned ecstatic reviews from many experts for its capabilities, some critics have pointed out clear issues around bias.
Peter Aldhous / BuzzFeed News:
Hackers attacked GEDmatch servers and caused over 1M of its profiles to be opted-in for searching by law enforcement, which were previously opted-out  —  First GEDmatch, the DNA database that helped identify the Golden State Killer, was hacked.  Then email addresses from its users were used …
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Pandora expands interactive voice ads in beta for more listeners and advertisers and allows free users to unlock on-demand music search with their voice  —  Pandora is expanding the scope of its interactive voice-based advertising today, launching the service in beta for more listeners and advertisers …
Michael McSweeney / The Block:
US bank regulator grants national savings banks and federal savings associations the authority to provide cryptocurrency custody services to their customers  —  The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has opened the door for federal savings associations and national savings banks …
Jeff John Roberts / Fortune:
Facebook to pay $650M to settle a facial recognition suit in Illinois, after judge says the original settlement of $550M did not adequately punish the company  —  Facebook has agreed to pay a total of $650 million in a landmark class action lawsuit over the company's unauthorized use of facial recognition, a new court filing shows.
Christine Hall / Crunchbase News:
Cybersecurity startup CyCognito raises $30M Series B led by Accel, bringing its total raised to $53M  —  CyCognito, which helps identify and eliminate the critical security risks in an organization's IT ecosystem, secured a $30 million round of Series B funding to expand its unique approach to assessing risk.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
UK-based Quantexa, which uses big data intelligence for risk analysis and investigations, raises $64.7M Series C led by Evolution Equity Partners  —  The wider field of cyber security — not just defending networks, but identifying fraudulent activity — has seen a big boost in activity in the last few months, and that's no surprise.
More: Tech.eu and VentureBeat
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Apple starts giving “hacker-friendly” iPhones with a custom and more accessible iOS version to vetted researchers in the iOS Security Research Device program  —  For the past decade Apple has tried to make the iPhone one of the most secure devices on the market.
Kate Conger / New York Times:
Sources: Facebook is preparing to limit the reach of QAnon content, with an announcement next month, and has been coordinating with Twitter and other companies  —  The company permanently suspended thousands of accounts associated with the fringe conspiracy theory movement.

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Is AI just hype?  —  Find out how top enterprises use Tribe to get real business results.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
How to create an omnichannel customer engagement strategy  —  Let's talk customer engagement—the holy grail of any business.  If you look at any real-world examples, Sephora is what most consider the 'Sensei …
Comprehensive.io:
Browse salary data from 3,000 startups for free  —  Click for FREE, immediate access to real-time compensation benchmarking data.  Paid version helps HR automate comp reviews and communicate total compensation to employees.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Henry Shukman, Lessons from an Authentic Zen Master
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 03/28 - Claude 3 Opus Surpasses GPT-4 For The First Time
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:55 AM ET, July 23, 2020.

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.

More News

Earlier Picks

Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Ari Levy / CNBC:
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Karen Weise / New York Times:
Ian Sherr / CNET:
Manuel Vonau / Android Police: