Note: Techmeme is hiring part-time editors. Apply here or tell a friend!
Techmeme
August 5, 2020, 9:10 AM

Top News

TechCrunch:
Anthony Levandowski, ex-Uber self-driving head, was sentenced to 18 months in prison as he files a new lawsuit against Waymo and Uber  —  Maverick self-driving car engineer will not need to report until threat of COVID-19 pandemic has passed  —  Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer …
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
Disney says Disney+ has grown to 60.5M subscribers, up from 54M in May, and it has 100M+ paid subs for streaming services including Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+  —  Disney+ had more than 60.5 million paying subscribers as of yesterday, according to The Walt Disney Company's CEO Bob Chapek.
Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:
In a letter to staff, ByteDance founder and CEO Zhang Yiming says a forced sale of TikTok to a US buyer is “unreasonable” and the real goal of the US is a ban  —  - U.S. doesn't really want to see a sale to American buyers  — Founder Zhang Yiming issues second letter in two days
Dan Primack / Axios:
New York Times:
Kate Clark / The Information:
HeadSpin to return ~$95M to investors and has replaced its CEO after an internal review of financial irregularities; its valuation now down from $1.16B to $250M  —  HeadSpin, a mobile app testing company recently valued at $1.16 billion, plans to return up to $95 million in funding to investors …
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
Google says Google Play Music shutdown starts this month, global streaming will shut down in October, and music collections will be deleted in December  —  August begins the four-month Google Music shutdown.  —  Google Play Music has been given the death sentence by Google …
Apple:
Greg Joswiak will replace Phil Schiller as SVP of Worldwide Marketing; Schiller becomes an Apple Fellow and will continue to lead the App Store and Apple Events  —  Greg Joswiak joins Apple executive team as senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing  —  Cupertino, California …
Bloomberg:
Square reports Q2 total net revenue of $1.92B, up 64% YoY, with Cash App generating $875M in bitcoin revenue, gross profit up 167% YoY; stock up 11% after hours  —  - Online payment volume jumped more than 50% year over year  — Square's Cash App has more than 30 million monthly customers
Bill Kisliuk / UCLA:
UCLA and Apple launch a study to see whether iPhones, Watches, and Beddit sleep monitors can help in understanding how daily routines impact depression symptoms  —  Researchers from the Depression Grand Challenge collaborate with Apple  —  Researchers from the Depression Grand Challenge collaborate with Apple
Geoffrey Fowler / Washington Post:
Review of Amazon's Echo Frames, $180 Alexa-enabled glasses that debuted last year: their internet connectivity is flaky and Alexa is too chatty and disruptive  —  You have to really love Amazon's Alexa to let the Echo Frames whisper in your ear all day.  —  What do you call it when there's …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Apple refreshes 27" iMacs with 10th-gen Intel CPUs and a 1080p webcam, shipping this week, and makes SSDs standard across its iMac lineup  —  But the design remains the same  —  Apple is announcing updates for both the 27-inch and 21.5-inch iMacs.  It's updating the processors inside …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
A hacker has posted a list of usernames, passwords, IP addresses and SSH keys of 900+ Pulse Secure VPN enterprise servers on a Russian-speaking hacker forum  —  EXCLUSIVE: The list has been shared on a Russian-speaking hacker forum frequented by multiple ransomware gangs.
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
Profile of Mohamed Al-Sharifi, aka GamerDoc, a volunteer who has spent two years hunting cheaters in Overwatch and Valorant, getting ~50K-70K cheaters banned  —  This 24-year-old Iraqi who lives in London has spent two years hunting cheaters in Overwatch and Valorant, getting thousands …
Financial Times:
Chinese investments into India's tech startups are showing signs of drying up amid geopolitical tensions, opening the door to US investors to fill the void  —  As political tensions dominate India's relations with China, US companies see an opportunity  —  Just days after 20 Indian soldiers …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Analysis of the questions asked by Democrats and Republicans during the House antitrust hearing and what it reveals about their partisan priorities  —  The only thing more predictable than members of Congress using hearings to make statements instead of ask questions, and when they do ask questions …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Facebook launches Instagram Reels, its TikTok competitor that lets users create and publish 15-second videos, in 50+ countries, including the US, UK, and Japan  —  Instagram Reels, the company's significant effort in challenging TikTok on short-form creative content, is launching globally, starting today.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini  —  Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator.  Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
Warp:
The #1 Coding Agent  —  #1 on Terminal-Bench.  71% on SWE-bench Verified.  Trusted by 600K+ devs.  Try the top agentic dev tool for $1 for 1st month with code TECHMEME.
Zoho:
Boost technician productivity on the go with the Zoho FSM mobile app  —  Life on the move: Inside a technician's daily workflowIn field service, unpredictability is part of the job.  One moment, a technician is on schedule.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Tech Brew Ride Home:
Meta's Smart Headware Push
Tech news headlines every day. 15 minutes and you're up to date. From Tech Brew, Morning Brew's tech hub.
Subscribe to Tech Brew Ride Home.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
How the head of Obsidian went from superfan to CEO
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Grit:
Building High-Impact Sales Teams | Dan Lee and Nooks
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour (Reforge)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
Can The Web Survive Generative AI? -- With Matthew Prince
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Hard Fork:
GPT-5 Backlash + Perplexity C.E.O. Aravind Srinivas on the Browser Wars + Hot Mess Express
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:10 AM ET, August 5, 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

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Jason Parham / Wired:
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:

Earlier Picks

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
European Commission:
Tom Warren / The Verge: