Tips and tricks for all

Sarah Kessler / OneZero  : Companies are increasingly using employee survey data, from services like Perceptyx that offer a “union vulnerability index”, to predict and squash organizing   —  Employee survey platforms allow employers to sort groups of employees by the departments, locations, and demographics most likely to unionize from Techmeme https://ift.tt/30g4oBe

Kevin Collier / NBC News : A look at Election Cyber Surge, which aims to bolster US election cybersecurity by matching local election officials with cybersecurity experts who want to help   —  As election officials across the country prepare for November without knowing if they'll receive additional federal funds … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2XdlOMT

Mike Schulman / The Keyword : Google updates its “Why this ad” feature, now “About this ad”, to show verified names of advertisers and is testing “trust tokens” to replace 3rd-party cookies   —  Vice President, Ads Privacy and Safety  —  Privacy is core to our work at Google … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/3febwSV

President Donald Trump said he could act to ban the world’s most popular short video app TikTok from the US as early as Saturday, according to The Hill . The president said he could use “emergency economic powers or an executive order” to bar TikTok from the US, he told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday. The news came hours after reports broke that Microsoft was in talks to buy TikTok. In his remark on Friday, Trump signaled he was not supportive of allowing an American company to acquire TikTok. On the same day, Bloomberg reported that Trump could order ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok. Trump’s announcement confirmed weeks of speculation that US regulators planned to block TikTok, which is immensely popular among American teens, over concerns that it could be a spying tool for Beijing. The question is  how  a divestment or ban of TikTok will take shape. TikTok is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, which has emerged as the most promising tech startup in China i

Cade Metz / New York Times : William English, who alongside Douglas Engelbart built the first computer with a mouse and showed it at “The Mother of All Demos”, dies at 91   —  He was one of the computing pioneers who “showed what a computer interface could — and should — look like,” a colleague said. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/3gpeJAM

CNBC : President Trump says he will act as soon as Saturday to ban TikTok from the United States   —  - President Donald Trump on Friday told reporters he will act as soon as Saturday to ban Chinese-owned video app TikTok from the United States.  —  President Donald Trump on Friday told reporters … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2BQYe1e

Kislay Verma : When companies have too many smaller teams, slicing problems too thinly, they face high coordination costs as teams become too dependent on each other   —  “The two pizza team” paradigm has become really popular in the context of organizing software teams.  The idea is to have small … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/30fMBKs

Christine Hall / Crunchbase News : Lemonaid Health, which offers an on-demand service for accessing health care online, raises $33M Series B, bringing its total raised to $55M   —  Interest in telemedicine continues to increase, and Lemonaid Health raised an oversubscribed $33 million Series B round of funding to develop … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/3giM7ZN

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg : Apple acquires Mobeewave, whose app lets shoppers tap their credit card or phone on a smartphone to make a payment; one source says the deal is worth ~$100M   —  - Apple acquires Canada's Mobeewave for about $100 million  —  Apple Inc. has acquired Mobeewave Inc., a startup with technology … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2Dawipz

Even the hard-charging world of early-stage startups has its share of procrastinators, lollygaggers, slow-pokes, wafflers and last-minute decision makers. If that’s your demographic, today is your lucky day. You now have an extra week (courtesy of Saint Expeditus , the patron saint of procrastinators), to score early-bird savings to Disrupt 2020 , which takes place September 14-18. Buy your pass before the new and final deadline — August 7 at 11:59 p.m. (PT) — and save up to $300 . Who says prayers (or secular entreaties) go unanswered? Your pass opens the door to five days of Disrupt — the biggest, longest TechCrunch conference ever. Drawing thousands of attendees and hundreds of innovative early-stage startups from around the world, you won’t find a better time, place or opportunity to accelerate the speed of your business. Here are four world-class reasons to attend Disrupt 2020 . World-class speakers. Hear and engage with leading voices in tech, business and investment ac

Daniel Grant / Wall Street Journal : COVID-19 has pushed museums to improve their online offerings, including virtual tours, as they explore potential business models based on digital content   —  When Covid-19 forced museums to shut their buildings spring, many created new virtual offerings for visitors.  That digital content is likely here to stay. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/33eLz3x

At a typical annual meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), the program is a parade of titles like “A Structured Variational Autoencoder for Contextual Morphological Inflection.” The same technical flavor permeates the papers, the research talks, and many hallway chats. At this year’s conference in July, though, something felt different—and it wasn’t just the virtual format. Attendees’ conversations were unusually introspective about the core methods and objectives of natural-language processing (NLP), the branch of AI focused on creating systems that analyze or generate human language. Papers in this year’s new “Theme” track asked questions like: Are current methods really enough to achieve the field’s ultimate goals? What even are those goals? My colleagues and I at Elemental Cognition , an AI research firm based in Connecticut and New York, see the angst as justified. In fact, we believe that the field needs a transformation, not just in system desig

Politico : North Face and Heineken are among the companies who say they will resume Facebook ads from August, Levi Strauss and Smucker Co. will continue the boycott   —  More than 1,000 organizations stopped ads for the month of July, without getting many concessions.  Can they keep it going and build global pressure? from Techmeme https://ift.tt/3jYdqe9

Steven Musil / CNET : Twitter permanently bans the account of white supremacist David Duke   —  Duke's Twitter account was “permanently suspended” for violating the company's policy against hateful conduct, a spokesperson for the social network says.  —  White supremacist David Duke has been permanently banned … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/30g4UiM

Amy Lewin / Sifted : Netherlands-based “Slack for doctors” app raises $10.5M Series A led by Heal Capital, with Philips Health Technology Venture Fund and EQT Ventures participating   —  The collaboration tool for medics wants to ensure you never have to explain why you're in hospital 20 times over ever again. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/3gkfSJy

It’s officially now o’clock startup fans. All good things come to an end, and today’s the last day you can score an early bird pass to Disrupt 2020 . Don’t miss your chance to save up to $300 and get busy building your business at our global Disrupt event. Buy your pass before the deal — and the savings — expires at exactly 11:59 p.m. (PT) tonight. Disrupt 2020 takes place September 14-18. It’s packed with non-stop programming and gives you five full days to explore — expand your knowledge, your network, your opportunities and your business. We’ve added a new event this year: The Pitch Deck Teardown . Expert VCs and entrepreneurs will assess pitch decks submitted by registered Disrupt attendees, note red flags and offer constructive advice on how to improve this essential startup tool. We’ll hold multiple sessions over the course of Disrupt, so if you’re a registered Disrupt attendee, submit your pitch deck for consideration . That’s just one of many exciting ways attending Dis

Hello and welcome back to  Equity , TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast ( now on Twitter! ), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. We had the full team this week: Myself , Danny , and Natasha on the mics, with Chris running skipper as always. Sadly this week we had to kick off with a correction as I am 1. Dumb, and, 2. See point one. But after we got past SPAC nuances ( shoutout David Ethridge ), we had a full show of good stuff, including: Y Combinator Demo Day is going virtual , as before, and its coming iteration will also be live. The Equity crew all agree that this is the right thing to do, and probably more fun to boot. And now the founders can sweat a live event, too! What fun. Speaking of live events going digital, Disrupt is coming up. And it is going to be great. Read more here . A group of Stanford business school students are putting together and investment vehicle to invest money into themselves , which is a good idea and something that is hig