Techmeme
July 28, 2020, 2:10 PM

Top News

Sam Shead / CNBC:
Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter work to pull versions of a video touting hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 cure, after it was shared by Trump and his allies  —  - A Breitbart video containing dangerous coronavirus misinformation went viral on Facebook before it was removed.
Andrew Griffin / The Independent:
Twitter temporarily locks Donald Trump Jr's account for posting a “misleading and potentially harmful” video touting hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 cure  —  President posts same tweet, and is hit by slightly different sanctions … Donald Trump Jr has been suspended by Twitter for posting …
New York Times:
CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are preparing to argue that their companies do not stifle competition at a congressional hearing on Wednesday  —  The tech C.E.O.s will appear together at a congressional hearing on Wednesday to argue that their companies do not stifle competition.
Kyle Daly / Axios:
Combined market cap of Apple, Facebook, Alphabet, and Amazon is ~$5T, their combined 2019 revenue was ~$773B, and they have a combined cash reserve of ~$420B  —  The four Big Tech CEOs who will testify before Congress Wednesday command global empires with power and wealth that make them more like countries than companies.
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Bloomberg Law:
Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
New York Times:
Sources: after Airbnb and ClassPass began selling virtual classes, Apple wanted to collect its 30% commission on the sales, up from no fee previously  —  After Airbnb and ClassPass began selling virtual classes because of the pandemic, Apple tried to collect its commission on the sales.
The Markup:
Study of 15K+ recent popular queries finds Google devoted 41% of the first page of search results on mobile devices to its own properties and “direct answers”  —  The search engine dedicated almost half of the first page of results in our test to its own products, which dominated the coveted top of the page
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Spotify debuts a Group Session feature in beta, letting up to five premium users simultaneously listen to the same content remotely  —  Simultaneously stream music or podcasts  —  Spotify is now allowing its paying users to listen to music and podcasts with friends and family at the same time …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
In a reversal, CES says its event planned for January 2021 will be going all-digital, using a virtual meeting format for vendors, attendees, and the press  —  CES 2021 will take place in January as an all-digital event since the organizers feel it's the only way they can protect attendees during the pandemic.
BBC:
Google announces plans to build a new undersea network cable connecting the US, UK, and Spain, expected to be completed by 2022  —  Google has announced plans to build a new undersea network cable connecting the US, UK and Spain.  —  The tech giant says it is incorporating new technology into the cable …
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Revel suspends its electric moped service in NYC after two people were killed in recent weeks; at least one was not wearing a helmet during the crash  —  Two people were killed and one was critically injured while riding the shared electric mopeds  —  Revel is suspending its service …
Jeffrey Dastin / Reuters:
Over about 8 years, Rite Aid quietly added facial recognition systems in 200 US stores, largely in low income areas, claiming it was meant to deter theft  —  In the hearts of New York and metro Los Angeles, Rite Aid installed facial recognition technology in largely lower-income, non-white neighborhoods, Reuters found.
More: The Verge
Bloomberg:
After suing the EU on July 15, Facebook won a temporary halt to a demand for documents by EU antitrust investigators  —  - EU tribunal suspends EU Commission's information requests  — Facebook is suing EU over ‘irrelevant’ data demands in probes  —  Facebook Inc. won a temporary halt …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Gaming platform Roblox says it has 150M+ MAUs, up from 115M in February, and its developer community is on pace to earn $250M+ in 2020, up from $110M in 2019  —  Gaming platform Roblox, which has seen a surge of use due to the coronavirus pandemic, now has over 150 million monthly active users …
More: VentureBeatTweets: @shaig
Ed Caesar / New Yorker:
The story of CyberBunker, a hosting provider that once hosted The Pirate Bay and a number of dark web sites, whose German facility was raided by police in 2019  —  An eccentric Dutchman began living in a giant underground facility built by the German military—and ran a server farm beloved by cybercriminals.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Chorus.ai, which develops AI-based software to analyze sales calls, raises $45M Series C led by Georgian Partners, bringing its total raised to $85.2M  —  Chorus.ai, a startup that leverages AI to analyze sales calls, this week raised $45 million.  CEO and cofounder Jim Benton says the proceeds …

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
What's the ROI on AI?  That's the trillion dollar question.  —  Learn why Airtable's the enterprise operating system for the AI era, delivering enterprise-grade security, privacy and governance.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
Zoho Payroll Premium Plan: The best of Zoho Payroll  —  Zoho Payroll is on a mission to transform payroll for small, emerging, and established businesses.  To bring you closer to this goal, we're introducing a new plan: Zoho Payroll Premium Plan.
Notion:
Get up to 6 months free of Notion with unlimited AI  —  Notion is trusted and loved by thousands of startups as their connected workspace—from building product roadmaps to tracking fundraising.  Build and scale your company with one tool!
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 10/04 - AI Slop Comes To Podcasting
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 2:10 PM ET, July 28, 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

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Ionut Ilascu / BleepingComputer:
Intel Newsroom:
Georgia Wells / Wall Street Journal:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: