Techmeme
December 9, 2020, 5:45 AM

Top News

Dustin Volz / Wall Street Journal:
FireEye says some internal systems were hacked by nation state actors, compromising its Red Team tools, used to test the defenses of its thousands of customers  —  The cybersecurity company said the attack compromised its software tools used to test the defenses of its thousands of customers
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Sources: FTC and 40+ state AGs to file antitrust lawsuits against Facebook on Wednesday, alleging Instagram and WhatsApp purchases were made to kill competition  —  More than 40 attorneys general and the U.S. government are preparing to file antitrust lawsuits against Facebook on Wednesday …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Apple announces AirPods Max, over-ear headphones with noise cancellation, adaptive EQ, spatial audio, and audio sharing, available from December 15 for $549  —  The first over-ear headphones with an Apple logo on them  —  It turns out Apple has one more major hardware announcement …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: as Bob Mansfield retires, Apple puts AI chief John Giannandrea in charge of self-driving car project Titan; Doug Field runs the project day to day  —  - Company has been developing autonomous vehicle tech for years  — AI executive Giannandrea takes lead after Bob Mansfield leaves
Washington Post:
An internal Huawei document, found on its website, says Huawei tested facial recognition with a “Uighur alarm” to alert Chinese police when it detected Uighurs  —  An internal report claims the face-scanning system could trigger a “Uighur alarm,” sparking concerns that the software …
Associated Press:
Pornhub will no longer let users download videos or unverified users upload videos, after a NYT report alleged that it was hosting videos of rape, underage sex  —  NEW YORK (AP) — Pornhub said Tuesday it was halting unverified users from uploading video material after a report alleged …
CNBC:
Sources: DoorDash is expected to price shares in its IPO at $102, valuing the company ~$38.7B fully diluted, well above last week's $90 to $95 range  —  - DoorDash sold shares at $102 a piece in its IPO, above its range of $90 to $95, according to people familiar with the matter.
Kyle Bradshaw / 9to5Google:
Google says it is opening up its open source Fuchsia OS to outside developers, the first formal announcement about the project  —  For the past four years, Google has been developing a new operating system, Fuchsia, from the ground up.  Starting today, Google's Fuchsia OS is now being developed more openly …
Angus Whitley / Bloomberg:
A proposed Australian bill to force Google and Facebook to pay publishers for news now recognizes the monetary value of traffic that platforms send publishers  —  Google and Facebook Inc. won a key concession in Australia as the government unveiled details of a world-first law to force …
Phil LeBeau / CNBC:
Uber is selling its flying car project, Elevate, to Joby Aviation and is investing $75M into the company as part of the deal; terms were not disclosed  —  - The move will allow Joby to use Uber's app to offer air taxi rides when the company's aircraft eventually enters service, which could be as soon as 2023.
Kim Lyons / The Verge:
Google announces Look to Speak, an experimental project for Android that helps users with speech and motor impairments by selecting phrases with their eyes  —  The Android app is designed to make communication easier for people with motor and speech impairments
Karl Bode / VICE:
Senate votes 49-47 to appoint Trump ally Nathan Simington to the FCC for a five-year term, which could mire the FCC in partisan gridlock  —  Nathan Simington's was chosen to attack free speech and net neutrality.  He could gridlock internet policy for the next five years.
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A with Substack CEO Chris Best on why it is not a media company, content moderation, making a reader app for users to easily read their newsletters, and more  —  On today's episode of Decoder, I'm talking to Chris Best, co-founder and CEO of Substack, the subscription newsletter startup that's taken …
D'Arcy Coolican / Andreessen Horowitz:
Any consumer product that has a social component baked in has fundamental and asymmetric advantages over competing non-social products in that category  —  Social Strikes Back is a series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they're shaping the future of consumer tech.
Michael Larabel / Phoronix:
CentOS, a free Linux distro functionally compatible with its upstream source, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, says it's ending support for recently announced CentOS 8  —  Well here is a surprise for those that have long used CentOS as the community-supported rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux …
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
GitHub expands its Sponsors program to let companies directly fund open source projects, starting with Amazon, AmEx, Daimler, Stripe, and others  —  Amazon.com Inc., American Express Co., Daimler AG and Stripe Inc. are among those joining a new GitHub program that will let companies directly …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Truecaller: 31.3B spam calls were received between Jan. and Oct. globally, up 18% YoY, with the average American getting 28.4 spam calls/month, up from 18.2 YoY  —  Despite several efforts from carriers, telecom regulators, mobile operating system developers, smartphone makers and a global pandemic …

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI that works  —  Tribe builds tech for top AI companies.  Get in touch to learn how our bench of 500+ engineers and researchers can accelerate your roadmap.
Kulkan Security:
Hire Kulkan as your penetration testing partner  —  Kulkan prioritizes deep-dive manual security reviews, dissecting your software and infrastructure to find issues that once remediated can truly reduce security risk.
Zoho:
Environmental impact of remote support: Reducing carbon footprints in IT  —  Information technology is essential for powering core business processes and facilitating communication.
Mastodon:
Donate to Mastodon  —  Mastodon gGmbH, the non-profit behind the open-source software powering the social web, relies entirely on support from users like you.  Donate directly with a credit card or through Patreon.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Magatte Wade, Unlocking Prosperity in Africa (#53)
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 04/18 - Game Emulators On iOS And The Atlas Robot Lives!
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:45 AM ET, December 9, 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

Earlier Picks

New York Times:
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: