Techmeme
November 19, 2020, 4:05 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
BuzzFeed has agreed to acquire Verizon Media's HuffPost in a stock deal, as part of a larger agreement to syndicate content on each others' platforms  —  New-media companies have been exploring mergers as they try to jumpstart growth  —  BuzzFeed Inc. has agreed to acquire Verizon Media's HuffPost …
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming service launches in beta on iOS as a web app, bypassing Apple's App Store and letting iOS users play Fortnite  —  Nvidia joins Microsoft in bypassing Apple's App Store  —  Nvidia is joining its fellow cloud gaming providers in choosing to bypass Apple's App Store …
Damien Wilde / 9to5Google:
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google says it has completed a global rollout of RCS and will start testing end-to-end encryption in Android Messages  —  In mid-2019, Google decided to take over and speed up the launch of RCS.  A little over 17 months later, Google announced today that it has completed a global rollout of RCS …
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Sources: state and federal investigators are preparing to bring antitrust charges against Facebook for buying rivals Instagram and WhatsApp  —  State and federal investigators are preparing to bring antitrust charges against Facebook that will challenge the tech giant's acquisition of two rivals …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Facebook's Q3 transparency report: 0.1%-0.11% of what users see violates hate speech rules; 95% of hate speech takedowns are proactive, up from 24% in 2017  —  Lawmakers and moderators criticized its policies this week  —  Facebook says it is proactively detecting more hate speech using artificial intelligence.
Adam Satariano / New York Times:
Sebastiaan de With / Halide:
iPhone 12 Pro Max's camera achieves images of quality previously only seen in dedicated cameras that have sensors four times its size  —  At Halide HQ, we've been busily working away on a very deep, technical analysis of what's new in iPhone 12 cameras this year.  All four of 'em.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
The second-gen version of Echo Frames, Amazon's Alexa-enabled glasses that debuted last year for some customers, will be available generally on Dec. 10 for $250  —  - Amazon on Thursday said it's making the Echo Frames available to the general public, after launching the device last year …
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
The M1 Macs are astonishingly good and Rosetta is the exemplification of “it just works”, but the iOS app experience ranges from terrible to OK, at best  —  Better necessarily implies different.  —  That's one of my favorite axioms.  It's both intuitively and undeniably true.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Go SMS Pro, an Android messaging app with 100M+ installs, is exposing photos, videos, and other files sent privately by its users  —  Go SMS Pro, one of the most popular messaging apps for Android, is exposing photos, videos and other files sent privately by its users.  Worse, the app maker has done nothing to fix the bug.
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Fitbit rolls out OS 5.1 for Sense and Versa 3 smartwatches, with Google Assistant, voice-to-text, phone calls, and automatic blood oxygen readings  —  The latest Fitbit smartwatches offer a lot more when it comes to hardware, but on the software, they shipped a few of those features without taking full advantage of them.
Adrianne Jeffries / The Markup:
Google says it will end preferential search rankings for AMP pages in the spring, but remains “fully committed” to the technology  —  Targeting Trump Fans, QAnon Ad Slips Through Facebook's Filters  —  How Private Is My Pay App?
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
YouTube says channels of all sizes may now see ads on them, though only creators big enough to qualify for its Partner Program will be paid any ad revenue  —  The company is rolling it out on a ‘limited number of videos’  —  Starting today, YouTube will begin running ads on some creators' videos …
Mary Ann Azevedo / FinLedger:
Affirm files its draft S-1 for an IPO; in its fiscal year ending June 30, 2020, Affirm's revenue was $509.5M, up ~93% YoY, while net losses fell to $112.6M  —  Buy now, pay later innovator has over 6.2 million consumers on its network  —  Alternative payments provider Affirm Holdings …
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Facebook's bug bounty program, now in its 10th year, paid out $1.98M in 2020 so far, on over 1,000 submissions  —  The vulnerability was found through the company's bug bounty program, now in its tenth year.  —  IT'S BEEN ALMOST a decade since Facebook started offering researchers cash rewards …
Reuters:
Kid-focused gaming platform Roblox has titles and user profiles with profanities and other offensive content despite moderation efforts  —  (Please note paragraph four contains language some readers might find offensive)  —  BANGALORE/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Profanities and other offensive content …
Alex Kantrowitz / Big Technology:
In an internal memo, FTC exec director said the agency will cut costs, freeze hiring, and lower IT spending, even as Congress pushes for action against Big Tech  —  FTC executive director David Robbins tells staff the agency will cut its case costs, freeze hiring, and lower IT spending as its resources dry up
Scott Zamost / NBC News:
Criminals launder COVID-19 relief money through Venmo, Cash App, PayPal and other apps; so far 80 have been charged with trying to steal $240M+ from the PPP  —  Criminals are laundering illegally obtained funds meant for Covid-19 relief through the most popular apps for legally sending and receiving money …
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