Techmeme
December 22, 2020, 9:00 AM

Top News

Reuters:
Sources: Apple is planning to manufacture a car by 2024 which may include self-driving tech, internally developed lidar sensors, and “breakthrough” battery tech  —  (Reuters) - Apple Inc is moving forward with self-driving car technology and is targeting 2024 to produce …
Jeff John Roberts / Fortune:
Ripple CEO says the SEC will file a suit over the alleged sale of unlicensed securities and calls it a parting shot by the Trump administration  —  Ripple, one of the most important companies in the cryptocurrency industry, said Monday evening that the Securities and Exchange Commission …
Wall Street Journal:
Draft lawsuit filed by ten US states last week says Facebook and Google agreed to “cooperate and assist one another” against possible antitrust action  —  Draft lawsuit quotes Facebook's Sandberg saying Google pact was a ‘big deal strategically’
Raphael Satter / Reuters:
Microsoft, Alphabet, Cisco, LinkedIn, GitHub, VMware, and the Internet Association file an amicus brief in support of WhatsApp in the WhatsApp v. NSO Group case  —  (Reuters) - Tech giants Microsoft, Alphabet , Cisco, and VMware on Monday joined Facebook's legal battle against hacking company NSO …
Electronic Frontier Foundation:
The US government's proposal for crypto exchanges to collect identity data from users with self-hosted crypto wallets will expand the US' financial surveillance  —  One of the most important aspects of cryptocurrencies from a civil liberties perspective is that they can provide privacy protections for their users.
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
The omnibus funding bill Congress passed contains the controversial CASE Act, which may ratchet up copyright trolling, and the Felony Streaming Bill  —  from the but-why?  dept  —  As we warned about earlier this month, it appears that Congress has in fact put two very controversial copyright provisions …
Margaret Harding McGill / Axios:
Vikas SN / The Economic Times:
India-based VerSe Innovation, the company behind news app Dailyhunt and short video app Josh, raises $100M+ at $1B+ valuation from Google, Microsoft, and others  —  Dailyhunt parent VerSe Innovation has raised more than $100 million funding from tech giants Google and Microsoft …
New York Times:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Wall Street Journal:
Shoshana Wodinsky / Gizmodo:
Analysis: of the 60 biggest brands that paused Facebook ads in 2020, only ~10 continue to do so, and some of those have kept spending using other Facebook tools  —  This past summer, dozens of major brands pulled their ad dollars from Facebook in a protest of the company's handling of the hate speech and disinformation.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Group of 19 security firms and tech companies including Microsoft and McAfee form Ransomware Task Force to develop a standard framework to deal with ransomware  —  The newly-founded Ransomware Task Force will work to put together a standard framework for dealing with ransomware attacks.
More: TechSpot
Simon Parkin / New Yorker:
Q&A with Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto on what excites him about his work, his strengths and weaknesses as a boss, not abusing power, ambitions, and more  —  The legendary designer on rejecting violence in games, trying to be a good boss, and building Nintendo's Disneyland.
BBC:
Facebook says it had to remove some features in EU, including some child abuse detection tools, due to new rules banning automatic scanning of private messages  —  Facebook has switched off some of its child abuse detection tools in Europe in response to new rules from the EU.
The Information:
Sources: Ironclad, which helps companies create and manage business contracts, raises $100M+ Series D led by Bond Capital, valuing it at $950M+  —  Ironclad, which develops software that helps companies such as Dropbox and Mastercard create and manage business contracts …
More: TechCrunch
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Personal info including emails, home addresses, and phone numbers of 272K+ users of hardware cryptocurrency wallet Ledger are freely available on hacker forums  —  A threat actor has leaked the stolen email and mailing addresses for Ledger cryptocurrency wallet users on a hacker forum for free.

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Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Earlier Picks

Sam Biddle / The Intercept:
Nandita Bose / Reuters:
Zach Dorfman / Foreign Policy:
Cecilia D'Anastasio / Wired: