Friday, December 18, 2020

Sources: the AGs of Utah, North Carolina, and NY among others are preparing a lawsuit against Google over the cut it takes from app developers in its Play Store (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Sources: the AGs of Utah, North Carolina, and NY among others are preparing a lawsuit against Google over the cut it takes from app developers in its Play Store  —  - States probing Google Play's 30% in-app-purchase fees  — Case would mark new front in antitrust assault against Google



Cisco says some internal machines used by its researchers were targeted by SolarWinds hackers and that there's no known impact to Cisco's products at this time (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Cisco says some internal machines used by its researchers were targeted by SolarWinds hackers and that there's no known impact to Cisco's products at this time  —  - Corrupted software found in a few labs, worker devices  — No known impact to Cisco offers or products, company says



​8 things to know about how hackers target online shoppers on WhatsApp and other social media websites

https://ift.tt/3mAon5H

Sources: hackers conducted a test run of the SolarWinds breach in October 2019, with a version of the malware that didn't have a backdoor embedded in it (Kim Zetter/Yahoo News)

Kim Zetter / Yahoo News:
Sources: hackers conducted a test run of the SolarWinds breach in October 2019, with a version of the malware that didn't have a backdoor embedded in it  —  Hackers who breached federal agency networks through software made by a company called SolarWinds appear to have conducted a test run …



Survey: 44% of women founders and 65% of LGBTQ founders say they've been harassed, ~50% of women founders were told they would raise more money if they were men (Women Who Tech)

Women Who Tech:
Survey: 44% of women founders and 65% of LGBTQ founders say they've been harassed, ~50% of women founders were told they would raise more money if they were men  —  Women Who Tech retained polling firm Lincoln Park Strategies to anonymously survey 1,003 tech employees, founders …



Israel-based social casino game developer Playtika files for an IPO, reporting $1.8B in revenue for first 9 months of 2020 vs. $1.4B for all of 2019, 35M MAUs (Dean Takahashi/VentureBeat)

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Israel-based social casino game developer Playtika files for an IPO, reporting $1.8B in revenue for first 9 months of 2020 vs. $1.4B for all of 2019, 35M MAUs  —  Israel-based mobile gaming giant Playtika has filed for its long-awaited initial public offering (IPO).



Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla have banned a root certificate being used by the Kazakhstan government to intercept and decrypt HTTPS traffic (Catalin Cimpanu/ZDNet)

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla have banned a root certificate being used by the Kazakhstan government to intercept and decrypt HTTPS traffic  —  This marks the second time browsers makers had to intervene and block a certificate used by the Kazakhstan government to spy on its citizens.



Thursday, December 17, 2020

Oppo A53 5G With MediaTek Dimensity 720 SoC Launched

Oppo A53 5G has been released in China as a 5G variant of the Oppo A53 that launched back in August. The phone comes in two RAM and storage configurations and three colour options. https://ift.tt/34jqBjF

Twitter Plans to Create Label for Automated Bot Accounts in 2021

Twitter is planning to create a new type of account for bots next year that will identify them as automated, the company said in a blog post finalising plans for a reboot of its long-paused... https://ift.tt/3rbmmk6

WhatsApp Voice, Video Calls Now Rolling Out to Some Desktop Users: Report

WhatsApp appears to have started rolling out voice and video calls to a limited number of desktop users. Up until now, WhatsApp calls were limited to mobile devices. https://ift.tt/34o3BQG

Facebook Removes French, Russian Accounts Active in Africa

Individuals linked to Russia and the French military used fake Facebook and Instagram accounts to wage a covert disinformation campaign in the Central African Republic ahead of elections there this... https://ift.tt/3gYMytd

Google hit with third lawsuit as US states sue over search dominance

Google faced its third major lawsuit in two months as 38 U.S. states and territories accused the $1 trillion company of abusing its market power to try to make its search engine as dominant inside cars, TVs and speakers as it is in phones. https://ift.tt/2WnUAT6

Alibaba says it won't allow its tech to target, identify ethnic groups

Alibaba Group said it will not allow its technology to be used for targeting and identifying specific ethnic groups, following a report that its facial recognition technology can pick out Uighur minorities. https://ift.tt/34obIfW

Twitter planning to create label for automated 'bot' accounts

Twitter Inc is planning to create a new type of account for bots next year that will identify them as automated, the company said in a blog post finalizing plans for a reboot of its long-paused verification program. https://ift.tt/3h0To1i

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase files with regulators to go public

Coinbase Inc said it had confidentially applied with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to go public in a move that would make it the first major U.S. cryptocurrency exchange to list on the stock market. https://ift.tt/3nzxCEG

MediaTek says it has started to use Intel Foundry's advanced chip packaging in addition to TSMC's, as the mobile chip designer bets on AI demand for growth (Cheng Ting-Fang/Nikkei Asia)

Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asia : MediaTek says it has started to use Intel Foundry's advanced chip packaging in addition to TSMC's...