Techmeme
December 24, 2020, 12:55 AM

Top News

Kate Duffy / Business Insider:
April Christina Curley, a Google recruiter focused on Black colleges, says she was fired in September and alleges a hostile work environment for Black people  —  - A Google employee, who said she was fired by the tech giant in September, claimed Monday that her manager told her that her way of speaking …
Reuters:
Documents: Google's AI unit tightened control over its scientists' papers on “sensitive topics” and asked at least three to portray its tech in a positive light  —  OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's Google this year moved to tighten control over its scientists' papers by launching a …
Financial Times:
China's market regulator announces antitrust investigations into Alibaba, first of its kind for a Chinese internet company, for alleged monopolistic practices  —  Probe into China's biggest tech group is one of the first of its kind for country's internet sector
Bloomberg:
China's regulatory crackdown to limit the influence of Jack Ma, who has long cultivated the image of a rebel fighting the system, has been years in the making  —  When Jack Ma took to a Shanghai conference stage in October, China's most famous entrepreneur was on the brink of pulling off …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Source: Apple is planning to release an updated Apple TV with a focus on gaming, an updated remote, and a new processor next year  —  Hey everyone, it's Mark Gurman.  I cover all things Apple Inc. at Bloomberg Technology and I'm the host of the new consumer tech segment Power Up on Bloomberg TV.
Zach Dorfman / Foreign Policy:
US officials say Chinese tech companies, including Alibaba and Baidu, have been enlisted to process stolen US data for Chinese spy agencies to analyze  —  Beijing was giving China hawks in the United States plenty of ammunition.  That same year, hackers working for China's People's Liberation Army …
John Harney / Bloomberg:
Kevin McLaughlin / The Information:
Sources: Zoom has begun developing a web email service for businesses, and may trial it next year, and is also considering building a calendar app  —  Zoom Video Communications has had an astonishing rise in 2020, emerging as the go-to service for work meetings and family get-togethers during the pandemic.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Nuro says it has been granted a permit to test and charge for its commercial autonomous delivery service by California's DMV, the first company to do so  —  Hours after announcing that it acquired self-driving truck startup Ike, Nuro revealed it's the first company to receive permission …
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
SEC sues Ripple Labs, its CEO Brad Garlinghouse, and Chairman Chris Larsen, alleging they violated federal securities laws in selling XRP to retail consumers  —  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) believes Ripple Labs violated federal securities laws in selling the XRP cryptocurrency to retail consumers.
Leo Kelion / BBC:
DeepMind details MuZero, revealed in 2019 and following AlphaZero, which can master games without knowing the rules and is working on YouTube video compression  —  DeepMind's latest AI program can attain “superhuman performance” in tasks without needing to be given the rules.
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Apple's new privacy prompt to allow or deny tracking, originally meant to be introduced in Sept., has started to roll out for some iOS 14 users in certain apps  —  As a privacy measure, Apple will be requiring developers of iPhone and iPad apps to request permission from users to track …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Telegram debuts group voice chat as CEO Pavel Durov says it is nearing 500M MAUs and will launch an ad platform for public one-to-many channels next year  —  Instant messaging app Telegram is “approaching” 500 million users and plans to start generating revenue starting next year to keep the business afloat …
Drew FitzGerald / Wall Street Journal:
FCC's ongoing 5G wireless licenses auction has fetched over $69.8B after three weeks, beating the $44.9B sale of 4G licenses in 2015, and will resume January 4  —  FCC sale of wireless licenses has already hit new spending highs and the total could climb after a holiday break

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