Techmeme
January 4, 2021, 11:50 AM

Top News

New York Times:
Executives of the Alphabet Workers Union say discrimination and harassment continue and the company cracks down on those who are to speak out  —  Our company's motto used to be “Don't be evil.”  An organized work force will help us live up to it.  —  Ms. Koul and Mr. Shaw are, respectively …
Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch:
A group of over 200 Google and Alphabet workers have announced their plan to form a union, open to both employees and contractors  —  A group of more than 200 Google and Alphabet workers have announced their efforts to form a union.  With the help of Communication Workers of America Union's Campaign …
Kim Lyons / The Verge:
Slack confirms it has been experiencing a widespread outage since 10am ET  —  Users began reporting problems around 10AM ET  —  Slack is down on the first full work day of 2021.  The company said Monday morning “Customers may have trouble loading channels or connecting to Slack at this time.
New York Times:
A British judge rules against extraditing Julian Assange to the US, which has accused him of violating the Espionage Act, citing mental health concerns  —  U.S. officials want the WikiLeaks founder to face charges of violating the Espionage Act.  But a judge in London ruled that he was at extreme risk of suicide.
Zak Doffman / Forbes:
While Facebook touts e2e encryption on WhatsApp, Apple's privacy labels highlight how much user metadata WhatsApp collects compared to iMessage  —  WhatsApp, the world's leading messenger with 2 billion users sending 100 billion messages each day, popularized secure messaging.
The Verge:
Samsung announces its Galaxy Unpacked event will be held on January 14, where it's expected to unveil the Galaxy S21, S21 Plus, and S21 Ultra  —  Ring in 2021 with Samsung's latest smartphones  —  Samsung will officially be announcing its latest lineup of Galaxy flagship phones …
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
AMP Robotics, which creates robotics systems that sort recyclable material, raises $55M Series B led by XN, bringing its total raised to $75M  —  AMP Robotics, a Denver, Colorado-based startup creating robotic systems that sort recyclable material, this morning announced that it has closed …
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Hannah Ellis-Petersen / The Guardian:

Earlier Picks

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
New York Times: