Techmeme
September 24, 2020, 4:15 PM

Top News

Jessica Conditt / Engadget:
Amazon announces Luna cloud gaming service, going live in October for $5.99/month, with a gamepad and support for Fire TV, PC, Mac, iOS, and Android later  —  Spoiler: It's not a native iOS app.  —  4m ago  —  Luna is what happens when you take the subscription model of Prime Video …
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Ring unveils Always Home Cam, an autonomous drone that can fly around inside a house, expected to cost $249.99 when it starts shipping next year  —  The Always Home Cam is an ambitious new home security device  —  Ring latest home security camera is taking flight, literally.
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Ring announces a new line of security cameras for cars and says it is working with Tesla and others to integrate existing cameras into the Ring platform  —  Also working with Tesla and others to integrate existing cameras into the Ring platform  —  Ring has announced its first foray …
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Amazon announces $250 Echo Show 10 with a motorized base that can move the screen, a 13MP camera that keeps the user in shot, and more, with pre-orders today  —  The latest Alexa-powered smart display isn't content with sitting still  —  Amazon has just announced the latest iteration …
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Amazon says Alexa will start asking users questions to improve its conversation, change intonation depending on context, detect babies crying, and more  —  Today during its annual September hardware event, which was held virtually for the first time, Amazon announced updates across its portfolio of Alexa developer tools and frameworks.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon announces redesigned spherical Echo devices, including $99 Echo, $60 Echo Dot with Clock, and $50 Echo Dot, with on-board speech analysis  —  Amazon just unveiled an all-new Echo with a revamped design.  It comes in three colors and features a spherical design.
Sean Endicott / Windows Central:
Microsoft says a standalone, non-subscription version of Office will be released in the second half of 2021 for both Windows and Mac  —  Microsoft will release a new perpetual release of Microsoft Office in the second half of 2021.  The new perpetual release only appears in a single sentence …
Sarah E. Needleman / Wall Street Journal:
Epic, Spotify, Match Group, and others form the Coalition for App Fairness to pressure Apple and other app store owners to make changes to marketplace rules  —  The Coalition for App Fairness is seeking legal and regulatory means to address how Apple, other app marketplace operators work with developers
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple is now letting customers return only the band, instead of the entire Watch, if they bought a Watch with an ill-fitting Solo Loop band  —  Apple has reversed course and created an online band-only return method for customers who purchased an Apple Watch Series 6 or Apple Watch SE …
Todd Haselton / CNBC:
Amazon announces updated $40 Fire TV and $30 Fire TV Stick Lite with new home screen for easier content discoverability, arriving on September 30  —  - Amazon announced two new Fire TV products during its big online hardware event on Thursday.  — Amazon's Fire TV products compete directly …
Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
Twitter says its test to prompt users to read articles before retweeting was a success, with users opening articles 40% more and sometimes opting not to retweet  —  Twitter's experiment to get people to actually read the content they're sharing is going so well the company plans to expand it to the platform at large “very soon.”
Wired:
A look at Twitter's hack on July 15, the drastic changes it made in the immediate aftermath, and its plans to prevent an Election Day meltdown  —  On July 15, Twitter melted down.  On Election Day, that's not an option.  —  JULY 15 WAS, at first, just another day for Parag Agrawal, the chief technology officer of Twitter.
Sam Shead / CNBC:
Facebook's Oversight Board says it expects to start before the election, in mid to late October, after criticism for a perceived lack of action  —  - The independent Facebook OverSight Board has confirmed to CNBC that it plans to launch ahead of U.S. election in November.
Financial Times:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google rolls out updates to Maps with a layer showing COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people, with labels to indicate trends, coming to 220 countries and territories  —  Google today announced an update to Google Maps that will bring a new COVID-19 layer to the service to help you better understand the number of cases in a given area.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify and Chernin Entertainment agree to a multi-year partnership for Chernin to develop movies and TV shows based on Spotify's podcasts  —  More Spotify podcasts could soon become TV shows or movies thanks to a new, multi-year partnership announced today between the streaming music provider …
Biz Carson / Protocol:
Marc Bodnick launches Telepath, a “kinder” social network with Reddit's subreddit topic structure, Twitter's in-the-moment feel, and Snapchat's ephemerality  —  The rules of the new social network Telepath are simple: Be kind.  Don't be mean.  No harassment, and no fake news.
Andrew Martin / Bloomberg:
CISA: a hacker accessed the network of an unnamed US federal agency using valid credentials for multiple users' Microsoft 365 accounts and domain admin accounts  —  An unnamed U.S. federal agency was hit with a cyber-attack after a hacker used valid access credentials, authorities said on Thursday.
ProPublica:
A malware attack on a rural Texas county's email system, sending fake emails to voters, shows a significant weakness of America's election security  —  Congress works for you.  Learn how to be a better boss with the User's Guide to Democracy, a series of personalized emails about what your representatives actually do.

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More News

Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Earlier Picks

Jennifer Elias / CNBC: