Techmeme
January 16, 2021, 7:15 AM

Top News

Nick Statt / The Verge:
WhatsApp to delay new privacy policy by three months following widespread confusion over whether the policy would mandate data sharing with Facebook  —  The new update will now go out on May 15th  —  WhatsApp on Friday announced a three-month delay of a new privacy policy originally slated …
Shoshana Wodinsky / Gizmodo:
A deep dive into the WhatsApp privacy policy change that prompted an exodus of users from the app and why Facebook struggled to communicate what was in it  —  Even if you aren't the type of person who peruses WhatsApp on a regular basis, chances are you've tried perusing its new privacy policy.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple to launch redesigned iMacs this year with a Pro Display XDR-like design, and is working on two new Mac Pros, one of which may use Intel CPUs  —  Apple Inc. is planning the first redesign of its iMac all-in-one desktop computer since 2012, part of a shift away from Intel Corp. processors …
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple has begun preliminary work on an iPhone model with a foldable screen, while testing an in-screen fingerprint reader for 2021  —  Apple Inc. has begun early work on an iPhone with a foldable screen, a potential rival to similar devices from Samsung Electronics Co. and others …
The Information:
Sources: Apple is discussing launching a new subscription service that would charge people to listen to podcasts  —  Apple—long considered the sleeping giant in the podcast space—is waking up.  The company, which runs the most widely used podcasting app in the industry …
Zoe Schiffer / The Verge:
Leaked screenshots show GitHub employees using the term “Nazi” in its internal Slack to protest the unexplained firing of an employee that used the same word  —  Now in protest, they're using Slack to call Nazis what they are  —  GitHub employees are protesting the firing …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple has started to block the sideloading of unsupported iOS and iPadOS apps using third party software on M1 Macs  —  Earlier this week, 9to5Mac reported that Apple would soon start blocking users from side loading iPhone and iPad applications to their M1 Macs.
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Parler is not down due to a single company but because the market chose not to do business with it because it's toxic, which is the nature of a free market  —  I've delayed writing deeper thoughts on the total deplatforming of Parler, in part because there was so much else happening …
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Twitter outlines its plans for Wednesday's Inauguration Day, including transitioning @POTUS and other handles to Biden and archiving several official accounts  —  - Less than two weeks after President Donald Trump was kicked off his personal Twitter account, the institutional White House …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft is planning to fix a Windows 10 vulnerability that could corrupt a NTFS-formatted hard drive simply by viewing a folder with a malicious shortcut  —  A bizarre Windows bug for 2021  —  Microsoft says it's planning to fix a bizarre Windows 10 bug that could corrupt a hard drive just by looking at an icon.
Tom Roston / OneZero :
On its 20th anniversary, Wikipedians recount how it began and how it grew to become the definitive digital encyclopedia and the default resource for everything  —  hard to imagine the internet without Wikipedia.  Just like the air we breathe, the definitive digital encyclopedia …
Alex Pasternack / Fast Company:
How Wikipedia, where neutrality is prized above all, struggled to chronicle the Capitol insurrection in real time  —  ‘Storming’?  ‘Insurrection’?  ‘Riot’?  ‘Attempted coup’?  On Wikipedia, where neutrality is prized above all, volunteers are still searching for the words.
South China Morning Post:
A look at the rise and fall of Xiami, Alibaba's discontinued music streaming service, which only had 22.4M MAUs by Oct. vs. 450M+ for Tencent's three music apps  —  Once a leader, Xiami saw its monthly active users (MAUs) fall to 22.4 million by October 2020, a tiny fraction of the 450 million …

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Earlier Picks

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:
Mike Rogoway / Oregonian:
Jason Del Rey / Vox:
Taylor Lorenz / New York Times: