IRS amends its deal with tax prep software firms, now barred from hiding free products from search, and ends its ban on making its own online filing system
Finding free online tax filing should be easier this year for millions of Americans. — The IRS announced significant changes Monday …
Sonos should rethink its Trade Up program's “Recycle Mode”, which bricks old Sonos devices for a discount on newer ones, and consider a policy of reuse
An irreversible kill switch for a discount is a bad deal for the environment — Late last week, Sonos was called …
Microsoft wins court order to seize 50 domains run by North Korean cyber-espionage group Thallium, the fourth APT Microsoft has combated with this tactic
Microsoft takes control of 50 domains operated by Thallium (APT37), a North Korean cyber-espionage group.
Uber, Postmates sue CA to block AB-5, days ahead of bill taking effect, say law unconstitutionally targets gig economy companies and benefits other industries
- Companies call labor rights measure unfair, unconstitutional — A.B. 5 will qualify many contractors for employment benefits
WSJ: Cloud Hopper, a hacking campaign by Chinese state-sponsored group APT10, was larger than formerly known, and may have been active as late as November 2019
The hackers seemed to be everywhere. — In one of the largest-ever corporate espionage efforts, cyberattackers alleged … Source: Wall Street Journal .
ProtonMail launches E2E encrypted calendar app ProtonCalendar in public beta, tied to users' paid ProtonMail accounts, encrypting event info and participants
Encrypted email provider ProtonMail has officially launched its new calendar in public beta. The move is part of the Swiss …
Trump signs TRACED Act into law to increase robocall fines, extend statute of limitations from 1 to 4 years, and require carriers to deploy STIR/SHAKEN protocol
The Pallone-Thrune TRACED Act, a bipartisan bit of legislation that should make life harder for the villains behind robocalls, was signed into law today by the president.
Huawei's Rotating Chairman Eric Xu estimates the company's 2019 revenue grew 18% YoY to $122B, says it shipped 240M smartphones, but forecasts “difficult” 2020
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Huawei Technologies on Tuesday said its full-year revenue would likely jump 18% in 2019 to 850 billion yuan …
2018 tax filings: Alphabet will no longer use the IP licensing scheme commonly called the “Double Irish, Dutch sandwich”, which had let it delay paying US taxes
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Alphabet (GOOGL.O), the parent company of Google, will no longer use the intellectual property …
Big trends and takeaways from the 2010s: the “capital as a moat” model has failed, machine learning has become table stakes for tech companies, and more
My friend Steve Kane suggested I take a longer view in my pair of year end posts this year: … And so I will.
Analysis of PitchBook data since 2005 shows that in 2019, the number of enterprise-focused seed deals overtook consumer-focused seed deals for the first time
I recently wrote a recommendation letter for a former coworker who wanted to change careers by going back to school.
Report: in January, YouTube will expand limitations on the data that videos aimed at kids can collect and stop showing personalized ads to underage viewers
Hannah Frishberg / New York Post :
Interview with AMD CTO Mark Papermaster on AMD's release schedule and future products, partnerships with TSMC and Samsung, driving industry standards, and more
Dr. Ian Cutress / AnandTech :
Amazon is set to open a homeless shelter in its Seattle HQ with the capacity to serve 275 people, through an expanded partnership with nonprofit Mary's Place
inside its HQ Matthew Wille / Input : Amazon is opening the largest family shelter in Washington state right inside its headquarters Msmash / Slashdot : Amazon is Opening the Largest Family Shelter in...
A look at the increasing prevalence of facial recognition and AI tech across the globe, as the US and EU governments' efforts to limit their use have stalled
Report: Indian startups raised a record $14.5B in 2019, up from $10.5B in 2018 and $550M in 2010; Sequoia, Accel, and Tiger Global were the most active VCs
Peerzada Abrar / Business Standard :
US shoppers are expected to return $100B worth of unwanted goods bought this holiday season; online purchases 3x more likely to be returned than those in stores
Alistair Gray / Financial Times :
Overview of the ongoing efforts by the US to modernize its spy operations, to contain the damage from the 2014 OPM breach, be more resilient to tracking, more
likely based on differences in pay between diplomats, speedy promotions...” https://twitter.com/... Artyom Lukin / @artyomlukin : Fascinating longread on espionage tradecraft. Mentions possible CN-RU ...
Obsessive documentation of one's life online has made it hard for young people to shed their past identities and might have bad effects for society at large
the potential for social change and transformation—may also be at risk.” That's a point that's not brought up enough. What effect does the permanence of the internet have on the impermanence of the hu...
VMware completes its $2.7B acquisition of Pivotal, originally announced in August
now one team under the leadership of @ray_ofarrell. To all our friends and colleagues there — you are a talented group — happy new year. :) https://blogs.vmware.com/... #sponsor Brian Solis / @brianso...
UK surveillance watchdog: public bodies have insufficient government guidance on when it's appropriate to use facial recognition, lip-reading tech, and more
Dan Sabbagh / The Guardian : Tweets: @petterbb Tweets: Petter Bae Brandtzg / @petterbb : “Police forces, hospitals and councils struggle to understand how to use artificial intelligence because of a ...
Analysis: VC funding in North American consumer electronics startups was $1.74B in 2019 vs. $2.45B in 2018, with significant slowdown at the Series B stage
Venture investors love technology. But lately they've been much less keen on the kind you buy in a box and take home from the store.
Research shows Tencent participated in 108 investment deals this year, compared to 162 in 2018, spending ~$4.9B in total, less than half of its 2018's total
Celia Chen / South China Morning Post :
Shopify's new AI commerce stack
Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control
Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data
Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.