Techmeme
September 9, 2021, 11:28 PM

Top News

Alex Heath / The Verge:
Facebook launches $299 Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses in six countries including the US; users can capture photo and video, listen to music, or take phone calls  —  Hands-on with Facebook and Ray-Ban's first pair of smart glasses  —  Starting Thursday, the first pair of smart glasses …
Source: Facebook TechnologyMore: BuzzFeed News, Wired, Axios, Ray-Ban, TechCrunch, The Verge, About Facebook, App Store, CNN, Platformer, CNET, Mashable, VICE, Washington Post, Insider, Associated Press, CNBC, San Francisco Business Journal, Engadget, YouTube, TechCrunch, Reuters, Forbes, Vogue Business, Bloomberg, USA Today, TNW, Android Central, Pocketables, LarrysWorld.com, Sydney Morning Herald, International Business Times, Liliputing, BBC, Input, inews.co.uk, iTnews, Barron's Online, 9to5Mac, Engadget, Pocketnow, Gizmodo, British GQ, UploadVR, Android Headlines, Road to VR, Pocket-lint, Silicon Republic, Pixel Envy, Livemint, XDA Developers, TalkAndroid.com, MobileSyrup, iDownloadBlog.com, TechRadar, news.com.au, and The Information
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple has appointed longtime Apple Watch and Health software chief Kevin Lynch as the new head of its Apple Car project after Doug Field's departure  —  - Kevin Lynch replaces Doug Field as head of Apple's car efforts  — Field left Apple's project after three years to work at Ford
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft indefinitely postpones the return to its offices in the US, saying it has “decided against attempting to forecast a new date for a full reopening”  —  The pandemic keeps pushing back Microsoft's plans  —  Microsoft is shelving its plans to fully reopen its US offices next month.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Amazon launches the Fire TV Omni Series, its first smart TVs, starting at $410 and shipping in October  —  Amazon is officially in the TV set business.  —  After years of selling Fire TV devices that plug into third-party HDTVs and teaming with TV makers for Fire TV-based products …
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Epic asks Apple to reinstate its Fortnite developer account in S. Korea, after passage of a Korean bill forcing app stores to allow alternative payment systems  —  Following the passing of a bill allowing alternative payment systems on the App Store  —  Epic Games has asked Apple to reinstate …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Epic to shut down Houseparty, the video chat app it acquired in 2019, in October, along with Fortnite Mode, which uses Houseparty for video chats  —  Houseparty, the social video chat app acquired by Fortnite maker Epic Games for a reported $35 million back in 2019, is shutting down.
Reed Albergotti / Washington Post:
Security researchers say Apple's bug bounty program is undermined by Apple's insular culture, confusion about payments, and long delays in fixing bugs  —  Lack of communication, confusion about payments and long delays have security researchers fed up with Apple's bug bounty program
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
Texas governor signs bill banning social media companies with 50M+ MAUs from blocking or restricting people or their content based on their viewpoint  —  The law is an escalation of a conservative critique of Silicon Valley and will likely to face legal challenges from the industry
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Wisetack, which facilitates buy now, pay later services for in-person business transactions, raises $45M Series B, following $19M seed and Series A in February  —  Buy now, pay later is growing globally — with various companies expanding to, and in, different parts of the world, such as Africa, Latin America and Asia.
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Hackers leak a list of ~500K Fortinet VPN login names and passwords; a source in the IT security industry says at least some of the leaked credentials are valid  —  A threat actor has leaked a list of almost 500,000 Fortinet VPN login names and passwords that were allegedly scraped from exploitable devices last summer.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Affirm beats in Q4 with $261.8M, up 71% YoY, vs. estimates of $225M, with 7.1M active customers, up from 5.4M in the previous quarter; stock up more than 20%  —  - Affirm reported better-than-expected revenue for the fourth quarter after the bell Thursday and gave strong guidance for the current quarter.
Edward Ongweso Jr / VICE:
Report: since 2004, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook and Twitter have earned $43.8B in contracts with the Pentagon, mostly in relation to the War on Terror  —  A team of researchers have published a new report detailing how Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Twitter have profited from the global campaign of violence.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
A number of playlist curators say Spotify is not addressing playlist abuse, letting bad actors report rivals to gain better visibility for their own playlists  —  A number of Spotify playlist curators are complaining that the streaming music company is not addressing the ongoing issue of playlist abuse …

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