Techmeme
December 9, 2020, 12:00 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
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
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 …
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Cloudflare and Apple say they have developed a new protocol called Oblivious DNS-over-HTTPS, which decouples DNS queries from internet users for more privacy  —  Engineers at Cloudflare and Apple say they've developed a new internet protocol that will shore up one of the biggest holes …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Max Weinbach / Android Police:
Sources: Samsung Unpacked will take place on January 14, and official marketing teasers for Galaxy S21, S21+, and S21 Ultra appear to have leaked  —  Samsung's next-gen Galaxy S21 series is just about a month away, and with that official debut coming up fast, renders of the device are inevitably …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
In a private 2018 meeting between UK's digital chief and Zuckerberg, minutes show Zuckerberg said the UK was “anti-tech” and threatened to end UK investment  —  Round of applause for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism — which fought for two years to obtain details …
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 …
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.
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
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Samsung's SmartThings will support Google Nest devices starting in January 2021  —  Support for Nest products through the SmartThings app arrives next month  —  Google and Samsung are bringing their smart home platforms together for the first time.  Samsung's SmartThings …
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.
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 …
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 …
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Florida police raid home of former state employee and COVID whistleblower, claiming she breached a messaging system despite all its users sharing one password  —  This is insane.  Earlier this year, we wrote about Rebekah Jones, the data scientist working for Florida, who put together …
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Paris-based NextMind says its wearable $399 Dev Kit, offering a claimed real-time brain computer interface, will begin shipping  —  NextMind has started shipping its real-time brain-computer interface Dev Kit for $399.  The device translates brain signals into digital commands …

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Hartley Charlton / MacRumors: