Techmeme
- A Harvard medical student used OpenAI's GPT-2 to submit comments on Idaho's Medicaid draft proposal; volunteers couldn't tell them apart from those by humans (Will Knight/Wired)
- The dominant business model of social media platforms, which emphasizes scale over everything else, makes them particularly vulnerable to disinformation (Joan Donovan/HBR.org)
- A look at the shady aspects of Tether, the stablecoin being probed by SDNY for over a year, widely used to buy BTC and other cryptocurrencies on many exchanges (Medium)
- Frankfurt, Germany-based CLARK, which searches for the best insurance rates for its users, raises €69M Series C led by Tencent (FinSMEs)
- Sources: in a flurry of parting actions against China, Trump's admin has notified Huawei suppliers including Intel that it's revoking licenses to sell to Huawei (Reuters)
- Sources: Citrix is in advanced talks with Vista Equity Partners to buy Wrike for $2B+, after the PE firm acquired the work-management service for ~$800M in 2018 (Bloomberg)
- Surging demand for laptops and 5G chips, alongside a boom in car sales, is fueling chip shortages and pushing prices higher, with older chips affected the most (Wall Street Journal)
- Due to Apple's security limitations and additional work required, few developers are bothering to port Chrome extensions to Safari, despite WebExtensions API (Jason Snell/Six Colors)
- GitHub apologizes to the employee it has fired for using the term "Nazis" on Jan. 6 and offers him his job back, says the company's head of HR has resigned (Zoe Schiffer/The Verge)
- A look at the incentives, like guaranteed auction win percentages, that Facebook got from Google in the ad partnership that is now a focus of an antitrust suit (New York Times)
- Trend Micro: 32% of 500 IT leaders believe AI will replace all cybersecurity roles by 2030; 19% say attackers using AI will be commonplace by 2025 (Eileen Brown/ZDNet)
- A critique of Canada's tech startup ecosystem, whose growth is being held back by the mindset of angel investors, the government's SR&ED tax credits, and more (Alex Danco)
- CES 2021 demonstrated that the smart home industry is at a pause after moving a little too rapidly for several years without understanding what consumers want (Kevin C. Tofel/Stacey on IoT)
- Iran blames legal and illegal crypto mining for massive blackouts in the country, shuts down a large, licensed Chinese-Iranian mining operation (Miriam Berger/Washington Post)
- Researchers working on Twitter's bluesky effort discuss how its open decentralized standard for social media could hinder efforts to stop online radicalization (Lucas Matney/TechCrunch)
TechCrunch
- Samsung vice chairman Jay Y. Lee sent back to prison in bribery case
- Goama lets developers integrate a social gaming platform into their apps
- Twitter is bringing Moments to Indian social app Dailyhunt
- Flipkart doubles down on rewards program, partners with 5,000 retail outlets in India
- Personio raises $125M on a $1.7B valuation for an HR platform targeting SMEs
- Startups at CES showed how tech can help elderly people and their caregivers
- Signal and Telegram are also growing in China ? for now
- UK?s Bloom & Wild raises $102M to seed its flower delivery service across Europe
- Virgin Orbit reaches orbit for the first time
- GitHub?s head of HR resigns in light of termination of Jewish employee
- Threat of inauguration violence casts a long shadow over social media
- Original Content podcast: Martin Scorsese and Fran Lebowitz have a good time in ?Pretend It?s A City?
- After a record year for Israeli startups, 16 investors tell us what?s next
- No one knows what anything is worth
- Human Capital: Labor issues at GitHub, Facebook?s new civil rights exec and a legal battle against Prop 22
- Stay gold, ?Plaid for X? startups
- Startups look beyond lidar for autonomous vehicle perception
- This Week in Apps: Parler deplatformed, alt apps rise, looking back at 2020 trends
- Checkout wants to be Rapyd and Fast
- Extra Crunch roundup: Antitrust jitters, SPAC odyssey, white-hot IPOs, more
Silicon Alley Insider
- Goldman Sachs lifts US GDP forecast to 6.6% in 2021 on Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus package
- 10 things in tech you need to know today
- The FBI is investigating whether a woman stole a laptop from Pelosi's office to sell it to Russia, after receiving a tip from someone claiming to be her ex
- A new coronavirus variant has been tied to at least 90 infections in a deadly outbreak at a medical center in San Jose, California
- Lindsey Graham asked Chuck Schumer, the next Senate majority leader, to dismiss a Trump impeachment trial in the name of 'national healing'
- Tommy Hilfiger just sold his sprawling Greenwich estate for $45 million. Take a look at the historic 22-acre property.
- The National Guard is doing background checks on its own soldiers to shore up security during the inauguration
- Armed protesters rallied at state capitols as cities and states ramp up security ahead of Biden's inauguration
- Federal prisons will be on lockdown as a security measure ahead of Biden's Inauguration
- President-elect Joe Biden plans to issue an executive order canceling the Keystone XL pipeline permit, report says
- Trump planning to raise $2 billion for a presidential library, likely in Florida: report
- 'Cowboys for Trump' leader detained by FBI after pledging to bring guns to DC
- Parler website appears to back online and promises to 'resolve any challenge before us'
- An associate of Rudy Giuliani told a former CIA officer that a Trump pardon would 'cost $2 million': report
- GOP Rep. Nancy Mace said that Trump 'put all of our lives at risk' during the Capitol riots, but rejected impeachment, calling the process 'rushed'
- All US special operators train for combat diving, but Navy SEALs take it to another level
- Calculating crypto - 6 stocks for the next 10-15 years - 10 top forecasts for 2021
- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was suspended by Twitter for 12 hours not long after she told Trump supporters to 'mobilize' in a deleted tweet
- Photos show ramped-up troops and barriers locking down Washington, DC, ahead of Biden's inauguration
- TSA 'significantly increased' security at DC airports ahead of Inauguration Day
- Rep. Jamie Raskin says an 'assassination party' of insurrectionists hunted Pelosi and Pence during Capitol siege
- Rep. Jamie Raskin on Trump impeachment: 'I'm not going to lose my son' in 2020 and 'lose my country' in 2021
- GitHub reverses course, cites 'significant errors of judgment' in firing of Jewish employee
- Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny detained upon returning home following poisoning
- A Poshmark seller nabbed over $12,000 by buying stock in the company's successful IPO. Here's how she did it.
- Trump administration staffers are getting snubbed while hunting for jobs
- Apple CEO Tim Cook says Parler could return to the App Store 'if they get their moderation together'
- The Trump ban across social media wasn't censorship - it was a series of editorial decisions by media companies that call themselves social platforms
- Every single passenger on board 2 international flights to Canada informed that they were potentially exposed to COVID-19
- Trump's habit of tearing up papers could leave a 'hole' in history as White House records may never be complete, worried experts say
- First-term GOP Rep. Peter Meijer says he 'may very well have' ended his political career by voting to impeach Trump
- After Trump's Twitter ban, critics want other populists like Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro and India's Narendra Modi booted from social media
- We're freelancers who relocated to a tiny town in Maine during the pandemic. Here's how we earned over $150,000 in 2020 while raising our toddler and enjoying local adventures.
- 'It feels like we're just not cared about': Healthcare staff speak out about how the UK's chaotic vaccine rollout means they're treating patients without getting the vaccine themselves
- The Florida data scientist who claims she was fired by the health department for refusing to alter COVID-19 data said she'll turn herself into police after a warrant was issued for her arrest
- Selena Gomez emailed Sheryl Sandberg months before the Capitol siege to highlight US militia group activity on Facebook
- Norwegian health officials have adjusted their advice on who gets a COVID-19 vaccine as 29 frail elderly people die
- What happened last week? Biden introduced a $1.9 trillion stimulus plan, Parler sued Amazon, and Loews Hotels cancelled a fundraiser for a senator.
- Messaging app Signal is back up and running after being down for more than 24 hours
- As a child of immigrants, this is not the American dream I was sold on
- Meena Harris, niece of Vice President-elect Kamala, wants her new children's book to inspire ambitious women (and girls) everywhere
- Kamala Harris will resign from her Senate seat on Monday ahead of inauguration as vice president
- FINDING A JOB IN 2021: Your guide to making big career moves and landing the role you've always wanted
- Kellyanne Conway told Bill Maher that she's 'disappointed' that Trump's accomplishments have been overlooked because of the Capitol riots
- The Big Law career guide for law school students, graduates, and young lawyers, from landing a job at elite firms to picking a practice area
- America's soaring national debt is a looming disaster
- Meet the millennial CEO who wants to redefine the ownership of men's clothing, and convinced Alexis Ohanian and Nas to invest
- I'm a former NFL pro who started a winery with two of my teammates - here's how we carried lessons from football into our business strategy
- The EU could throw out its landmark trade deal with China over concerns about Beijing's human rights record
- The top 9 shows on Netflix this week, from 'Lupin' to 'Bridgerton'
Mashable