Techmeme
August 18, 2021, 2:05 PM

Top News

Amy Thomson / Bloomberg:
T-Mobile says an investigation found 7.8M current users and 40M past and prospective users who applied for credit had information stolen in a cyberattack  —  - About 7.8 million current customers had information stolen  — Records from former and prospective users also accessed
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
Profile of Andrey Shumeyko, who shared internal Apple docs and devices on forums while informing on other members to Apple and says Apple took advantage of him  —  He spent years inside the iPhone leaks and jailbreak community.  He was also spying for Apple.  —  Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Samsung confirms it will stop showing ads in default apps, including Weather, Pay, and Theme, starting later this year  —  Including its Weather, Pay, and Theme apps  —  Samsung has confirmed that it will stop showing ads in default apps including Samsung Weather, Samsung Pay, and Samsung Theme.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft has made changing default browsers in Windows 11 unnecessarily complex compared to Windows 10, drawing criticism from Firefox and Opera  —  Competitors aren't happy  —  Microsoft's upcoming release of Windows 11 will make it even harder to switch default browsers and ignores browser defaults …
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
As Facebook bans the Taliban, Twitter says it only takes action against accounts breaking its rules, and YouTube says it will terminate Taliban-linked accounts  —  Who will control Afghanistan's official Facebook page?  —  Social platforms including Facebook, Twitter …
Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times:
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Podcasters say Apple Podcasts Connect, a requirement for using its new subscriptions product, is buggy and has a confusing UI  —  In April, Apple Podcasts was poised to revolutionize the industry.  It announced in-app subscriptions, as well as an entirely new backend, representing …
South China Morning Post:
Tencent reports Q2 revenue rose 20% YoY to $21.3B, beating estimates, as profit reached $6.6B, up 29% YoY from $5.1B  —  The Hong Kong-listed company reported a profit of US$6.6 billion in the quarter ended June The results come amid a recent stock market rout for the country's tech sector …
Joseph Bernstein / Harper's:
A look at the focus on disinformation by media, tech, and academic leaders, and how assumptions about disinfo effectiveness echo old media and advertising myths  —  In the beginning, there were ABC, NBC, and CBS, and they were good.  Midcentury American man could come home after eight hours …
Issie Lapowsky / Protocol:
Facebook for the first time shares a report on the most widely viewed content on Facebook in the US, including Q2's most-viewed domains, links, posts, and pages  —  A video of two cats walking, tails intertwined, looking like the best of friends.  A resource site for Green Bay Packers alumni.
Nikkei Asia:
Recent COVID-19 outbreaks are slowing plans by Apple, Google, and Amazon to shift production from China to Vietnam as governments tighten border controls  —  Suppliers say tighter border controls are hindering output expansion in Vietnam  —  TAIPEI — Recent outbreaks of COVID-19 …
Reuters:
Apple appeals a 2019 copyright case it lost against Corellium, after settling other claims with the company relating to the DMCA this month to avoid a trial  —  Apple Inc (AAPL.O) on Tuesday filed a notice of appeal in a copyright case it brought against cybersecurity firm Corellium LLC in 2019.
Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg:
Filing: Palantir acquired $50.7M in 100-ounce gold bars in August, in preparation for a “black swan event”, and will accept payment from clients in gold  —  - Company spent $50.7 million on 100-ounce gold bars in August  — Customers can now pay for software in Bitcoin, though none has
Politico:
BlackBerry discloses a critical flaw in QNX OS, impacting 200M+ cars, hospital equipment, more; sources say it resisted public disclosure until talks with CISA  —  A flaw in software made by BlackBerry has left two hundred million cars, along with critical hospital and factory equipment …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Postman, which helps developers build, test, and iterate their APIs, raises $225M Series D led by Insight Partners at a $5.6B valuation, up from $2B in 2020  —  San Francisco-based Postman, which operates a collaborative platform for developers to help them build, design, test and iterate their APIs …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple says FaceTime's SharePlay feature, heavily promoted during WWDC, will not be released in iOS 15, arriving instead in a later update  —  Apple has made the decision to delay the launch of its new SharePlay feature in iOS 15.  The new feature will be available in a later update to iOS 15 …
Bloomberg:
Sources: several execs at Waymo, which saw a mass exodus of top talent this spring, felt frustrated about the sluggish pace of progress with its driverless tech  —  The world's most famous autonomous car shop has lost its CEO and is still getting stymied by traffic cones.  What's taking so long?
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Twitter tests adding an option for users to report misinformation in the US, Australia, South Korea, and will use the reports to study and identify trends  —  - Not all flagged tweets will be reviewed by fact checkers  — Experiment will run in the U.S., Australia and South Korea
Jacob Silverman / New Republic:
Profile of DDoSecrets, a collective formed in 2018 that has shared confidential documents from US law enforcement, Myanmar, Ukraine, Gab, and others  —  As Freddy Martinez tracked the latest impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump on Twitter, he saw a screencap of a CNN broadcast that struck him as odd.
The Intercept:
Sources: the Taliban have seized US military biometric devices, known as HIIDE, that could aid in the identification of Afghans who supported coalition forces  —  The Taliban have seized U.S. military biometrics devices that could aid in the identification of Afghans who assisted coalition forces …
David Gilbert / VICE:
Report: militias like the Three Percenters are key spreaders of vaccine misinfo on Facebook, and some of their Facebook Group admins get a “Group Expert” badge  —  Violent militia groups have become “key” spreaders of vaccine misinformation on Facebook, and now those groups …
Maria Deutscher / SiliconANGLE:
Rapid Robotics, which is developing AI-powered industrial robots, raises $36.7M Series B led by Kleiner Perkins and Tiger Global  —  Kleiner Perkins and Tiger Global have led a $36.7 million funding round for Rapid Robotics Inc., a startup developing artificial intelligence-powered robots aimed at the industrial sector.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
TrustLayer, which uses AI to digitize insurance verification, raises $15.1M Series A led by Craft Ventures  —  The Transform Technology Summits start October 13th with Low-Code/No Code: Enabling Enterprise Agility.  Register now!  —  TrustLayer, an AI-powered platform working …
More: FinSMEs and PR Newswire
New York Times:
Amazon has surpassed Walmart as the world's top retail seller outside China; FactSet says people spent $610B+ on Amazon in the 12 months ending in June  —  Proof that the online future has arrived: The biggest e-commerce company outside China has unseated the biggest brick-and-mortar seller.

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