Techmeme
November 23, 2020, 7:30 PM

Top News

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Snap announces Spotlight, a vertically scrollable TikTok-like feed inside Snapchat, and will pay $1M every day to users who create the top Snaps through 2020  —  After taking on TikTok with music-powered features last month, Snapchat this morning is officially launching a dedicated place within …
Sue Dremann / Palo Alto Online:
Apple's head of global security Thomas Moyer indicted for trying to bribe Santa Clara sheriff's office with 200 iPads in return for concealed firearm permits  —  Defendants include Sheriff Laurie Smith's second-in-command  —  Four people, including top brass in the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office …
Lauren Kaori Gurley / VICE:
Internal reports detail how Amazon tracks labor, environmental movements in EU; Amazon confirms hiring union-busting Pinkerton agency to spy on warehouse staff  —  Dozens of leaked documents from Amazon's Global Security Operations Center reveal the company's reliance on Pinkerton operatives …
Bernard Meyer / CyberNews:
Researchers find actively-exploited backdoors in low-cost Jetstream and Wavlink routers sold at Walmart, Amazon, and eBay  —  In a collaboration between CyberNews Sr. Information Security Researcher , Mantas Sasnauskas and researchers James Clee and Roni Carta, suspicious backdoors …
New York Times:
A look at Sugon, a Chinese company at the heart of the country's surveillance efforts, and how it uses Intel and Nvidia chips to analyze video feeds at scale  —  Intel and Nvidia chips power a supercomputing center that tracks people in a place where government suppresses minorities …
Financial Times:
Sources: Facebook's charm offensive to repair ties with Biden's administration includes News Feed vaccine promotion and relying on Nick Clegg to mend relations  —  Social media giant to roll out vaccine promotion and give higher profile to Nick Clegg  —  Facebook is plotting a charm offensive …
Janko Roettgers / Protocol:
Last month Intel quietly shut down Intel Studios, its 10,000-square-foot AR/VR volumetric capture stage in LA that opened in 2018  —  Intel has pulled the plug on one of its most ambitious AR/VR projects to date: The company quietly shut down Intel Studios, a 10,000-square-foot volumetric capture stage in Los Angeles, last month.
Tina Bellon / Reuters:
Uber and Lyft awarded a federal contract by the GSA, estimated to be worth up to $810M over five years, to offer ride-sharing services to public agency workers  —  (Reuters) - Uber Technologies Inc and Lyft Inc have been awarded a federal contract worth up to $810 million to offer …
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Google Pay will no longer support send/receive money functionality from web app, starting January 2021, also adds 1.5% fee on instant transfers via debit card  —  The new Google Pay app brings a ton of new functionality and makes some big promises, but it also has a couple of big caveats that weren't widely known on launch day.
New York Times:
As bots plague everything from Tinder to Twitter, a look at how generative adversarial networks create images and videos of fake people, sold on many websites  —  There are now businesses that sell fake people.  On the website Generated.Photos, you can buy a “unique, worry-free” fake person for $2.99, or 1,000 people for $1,000.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26  —  Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Zoho:
Give your projects a “signature” upgrade with the Zoho Sign extension for Zoho Projects  —  Well-orchestrated project management keeps people, priorities, and processes all working in sync toward a shared goal.
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

Access:
Why the next AI frontier is phone calls, with Beside CEO Maxime Germain
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Great Chat:
So what happens after AGI?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
Big Technology Podcast:
AI Is Upending Law. Is That A Sign For The Rest Of Us? — With Melia Russell
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.
[trading places]:
Ben Black Akkadian Ventures🏆 | Secondaries Secrets 💎 | RAISE Conf 🎯 | Vercel $9B 🚀
a very bad podcast about broken unicorns & busted carry hosted by dave mcclure and aman verjee
Subscribe to [trading places].
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Lachlan Cartwright Started in Tabloids. Now He's a Must-Read Media Gossip.
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:30 PM ET, November 23, 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