Techmeme
August 4, 2020, 11:00 AM

Top News

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
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.
Dan Primack / Axios:
Apple says there are no talks to buy TikTok, and it isn't interested, after sources said it is among the companies that have expressed interest in buying TikTok  —  🖥️ You're invited: Axios tomorrow at 12:30pm ET hosts a live virtual event on small biz pandemic pivots with Sen. James Lankford …
Wall Street Journal:
The Official Microsoft Blog:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft's xCloud game streaming service will launch on September 15 on Android in 22 countries, bundled with the Xbox Games Pass Ultimate subscription  —  Available in 22 countries, but no iOS support at launch  —  Microsoft will launch its game streaming service, known as Project xCloud …
European Commission:
The European Commission opens an in-depth investigation into Google's proposed acquisition of Fitbit over concerns about vast amounts of data Google could use  —  The European Commission has opened an in-depth investigation to assess the proposed acquisition of Fitbit by Google under the EU Merger Regulation.
Takashi Mochizuki / Bloomberg:
Sony beats estimates with quarterly profit of $2.15B, says PlayStation Plus subscription service added 3.4M users for a total of 44.9M  —  - Company had delayed issuing firm full-year forecast on virus  — The Last of Us 2 was a record-breaking PS4 exclusive debut
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.
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 …
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 …
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.
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 …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Yotpo, which develops e-commerce marketing tools, raises $75M Series E at a valuation its CEO calls “nearly a unicorn”, bringing its total raised to $176M  —  “Marketing Cloud” has become an increasingly popular concept in the world of marketing technology — used by the likes of Salesforce …
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