Techmeme
August 4, 2020, 8:31 AM

Top News

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:
Trump says he is fine with the idea of Microsoft buying TikTok in US, but the US government should be paid a “substantial amount of money” as part of the deal  —  Today the President appeared to bless the budding Microsoft-TikTok deal, continuing his evolution on a possible transaction.
Wall Street Journal:
With a TikTok sale, China would lose control of its first global internet sensation, hardening the suspicions inside China that US is sabotaging its tech growth  —  Washington's push for Chinese company to sell American operations hardens suspicions in China that the U.S. aims to sabotage its technology
Wall Street Journal:
The Official Microsoft Blog:
Sam Shead / CNBC:
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google announces the $349 Pixel 4a, available on August 20 with preorders open now, $499 Pixel 4a 5G, and Pixel 5, coming later this fall  —  Google is officially announcing three Pixel phones today.  First is the $349 Pixel 4A, which is available for preorder now and will ship on August 20th.
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Twitter says FTC may soon fine it between $150M-$250M for using users' email addresses and phone numbers for ad targeting; practice was disclosed in Oct. 2019  —  Twitter said the identifiers were ‘inadvertently’ used for advertising  —  Twitter said that the Federal Trade Commission …
Caleb Potts / Android Police:
Facebook adds search feature in WhatsApp to help check viral messages for misinformation, rolling out today in Brazil, Italy, Ireland, Mexico, Spain, UK, and US  —  WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps in the world, but that also means a lot of misinformation and rumors are shared on the platform.
Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
Fawkes, a tool developed by researchers at the University of Chicago, disguises photos with pixel-level changes that confuse facial recognition systems  —  Researchers at the University of Chicago want you to be able to post selfies without worrying that the next Clearview AI will use them to identify you.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Take-Two Interactive beat expectations in fiscal Q1 with revenue of $831.3M, up 54% YoY, despite not launching any new games during the quarter  —  Take-Two Interactive reported today that revenue for its first fiscal quarter (the second calendar quarter) ended June 30 rose 54% from a year ago …
Bloomberg:
As tech giants renew vows to diversify their workforces, a look at why their efforts have fallen short, especially in retaining new Black and Latinx employees  —  Quora Inc., which runs the eponymous questions and answers website, couldn't figure this one out: Why were so many Black …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google announces partnerships with six more banks to offer digital checking and savings accounts to Google Pay users in the US, starting next year  —  Google is expanding its plans to offer digital banking services in the U.S. The company announced today it's partnering with half a dozen …
Jack Stubbs / @jc_stubbs:
[Thread] A look at the correspondence between a hacked US travel management firm, CWT, and the ransomware attackers, who were paid $4.5M in BTC to decrypt files  —  An interesting thing happened on the internet with week. U.S. travel management firm was hit with Ragnar Locker ransomware. The company agreed to pay and handed over $4.5 mln in bitcoin https://www.reuters.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Jeremy Horwitz / VentureBeat:
Canalys: global Q2 tablet shipments grew 26% YoY to 37.5M, desktop PC shipments fell 26%; iPad shipments grew 19.8% YoY to 14.24M for a leading 38% market share  —  Ten years ago, tablet computers were marketed as the vanguard of the “post-PC” era, but traditional desktop and notebook PCs remained popular as tablet sales plateaued.

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More News

Donie O'Sullivan / CNN:

Earlier Picks

David Shepardson / Reuters:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch: