What's Popular on Techmeme
Amazon says it will no longer use tips or supplemental earnings to cover promised wages of Flex drivers, who deliver for Prime Now, Fresh, and Whole Foods
latimes.com · 1 hour ago
Girls Who Code study of 1,000 young women highlights the challenges faced when seeking internships, often an unpleasant experience in a male-dominated workplace
Salesforce beats with Q2 revenue of $4B, up 22% YoY, vs. $3.95B est. and Sales Cloud revenue of $1.13B, up 13% YoY; stock up 6%+ after hours
VMWare to acquire cybersecurity company Carbon Black for $2.1B and Pivotal for $2.7B
Users whose accounts have been disabled by Facebook say the opaque review process, the endless wait, and the inability to contact an employee can be maddening
Shanghai-based The CareVoice, which is building an end-to-end mobile platform for insurers to integrate their existing solutions, raises $10M Series A
A look at Oculus Insight, Facebook's technology that makes inside-out VR tracking on Oculus Quest and Rift S headsets possible
Knotel, a WeWork rival that uses blockchain to make acquisition decisions, raises $400M Series C at a $1B+ valuation, bringing its total raised to $560M
Google is rolling out its face-grouping feature in Google Photos, first introduced in 2015, across Europe
Overstock CEO Partick Byrne has resigned from the e-commerce company after his comments about being involved in a "Deep State" investigation of 2016 election
Bose announces the $349 Portable Home Speaker with WiFi and Bluetooth and support for Google Assistant, Alexa, AirPlay 2, and Spotify Connect
AT&T, Comcast, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, and seven other US carriers announce an agreement with 51 attorneys general to implement new tech to block robocalls
DOJ says it has indicted 80 individuals, many based in Nigeria, as part of a massive business email scam and money laundering scheme
Krishna Bharat, who led the team that built Google News, returns to the company as a distinguished research scientist after a four-year hiatus
Palantir's revenue from US government contracts under Trump surpassed its total under Obama's second term, as sources describe staff debates about work with ICE
Despite a legally mandated ban enacted last year, ~2,000 Chinese surveillance cameras from Hikvision and Dahua remain active in US government networks
Valve patches recent Steam 0-days, calls turning away researcher who found them "a mistake", and updates bug bounty program to start accepting "LPE"-class bugs
Sources: News Corp is developing a news-aggregation service called Knewz, to address publisher concerns about Google and Facebook
A snapshot of Amazon's financial history and why free cash flow, which Bezos called Amazon's "ultimate financial measure", is always higher than its profits
vox.com · 13 hours ago
Fitbit wins a Singapore government contract to provide fitness trackers for free for up to a million citizens who subscribe to the $10/month premium service
Berlin-based Mister Spex, an online store selling various brands of prescription glasses and contact lenses, raises €65M for store and international expansion
Source: Google is planning an update to the Home Mini, called the Nest Mini, with a similar form factor, wall mount, improved sound, and 3.5mm jack
Google, Mozilla, Apple to block root certificate issued by Kazakhstan which could be used to monitor users; Microsoft says cert not in its Trusted Root Program
Used clothing online marketplace ThredUp says it has raised a total of $175M over the past year; ThredUp is valued at ~$670M according to PitchBook
IAC has acquired short-term nursing jobs marketplace NurseFly, source says for $15M
Eminem's publisher Eight Mile Style sues Spotify claiming copyright infringement, challenges the constitutionality of the Music Modernization Act passed in 2018
A look at the many failed social networks launched since 2002, including Friendster, Myspace, Bebo, ConnectU, Path, Yik Yak, Orkut, Google+, and Vine
Microsoft, Google, Alibaba, Baidu, IBM, ARM, Intel, Red Hat, and others form the Confidential Computing Consortium to promote better data security practices
A look at the weird and wacky patents filed by tech companies, some seemingly unrelated to the industry, and the reasons behind filing for them
slate.com · 1 day ago
Big data analytics service Splunk to acquire cloud monitoring company SignalFx for $1.05B
Intel unveils 10th-gen Comet Lake CPUs with up to 6 cores for thin and light laptops, based on its Skylake CPU architecture and 14nm process
Tala, a PayPal-backed startup that provides uncollateralized loans in emerging markets, raises $110M Series D led by RPS Ventures to expand into India
Facebook's conservative bias "audit" draws criticism from both sides after relying on interviews with 130 unnamed conservatives over internal data
YouTube says it is shutting down its Messages feature for mobile and web, introduced in 2017, to encourage usage of posts, comments, and stories
Contrary to conservatives' claims, data from 2018-19 shows right-leaning Facebook Pages with over 500,000 likes consistently outperform left-leaning rivals
Amazon says it is opening an office in Hyderabad, India, which will house over 15,000 employees, making it the company's biggest campus in the world
reuters.com · 1 day ago
WeWork offices use the same WiFi password across many locations and employ the weak WPA2 Personal security protocol, creating potential for abuse
Lyft has been sued at least seven times in August by women alleging sexual assault by drivers and little action from the company
Crossbeam, which builds a platform for potential partner companies to compare data, raises $12.5M Series A led by FirstMark Capital
As criticism from Trump and Democrats mounts, Amazon is courting US policymakers of all stripes with warehouse tours, which are later posted on social media
washingtonpost.com · 1 day ago
Raspberry Pi 4 review: still very cheap with an improved processor, true Ethernet, and more RAM; the new Desktop Kit add-on makes the device even more useful
Google DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, who led a heavily criticized unit focusing on practical AI uses, has been placed on leave for unspecified reasons
Researcher who was banned from Valve's HackerOne bug bounty program after submitting a Steam 0-day that Valve downplayed reveals details of another Steam 0-day
Google officially rolls out a redesign for the Play Store, using its Material design language, and creates two distinct destinations for games and apps
Google says it has started rolling out AI-powered real-time spelling and grammar check features on Gmail for all G Suite users
Internal raises $5M seed round from David Sacks' Craft Ventures to help companies deploy consoles to manage employee access to sensitive customer data
Apple Music launches a new chart, the Shazam Discovery Top 50, powered by Shazam data and featuring songs trending in the US and 10+ other countries
Adult website Luscious left data of 1M+ users exposed, including user email addresses, location data, the content they uploaded, liked, and shared
How companies like McDonald's and Facebook use podcasts, such as Gizmodo-produced The Sauce, as subtle brand-building efforts meant to entertain and persuade
nytimes.com · 2 days ago