10 things in tech you need to know today

Reuters

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1. India has banned 47 more Chinese apps including a TikTok clone and is eyeing hundreds more. It also published a list of 275 more apps it’s considering banning.

2. Joe Biden’s campaign has told staffers to delete TikTok from their personal and work phones citing security and privacy concerns. US lawmakers have grown increasingly worried about potential security implications of the popular social media app’s Chinese ownership.

3. Intel’s chief engineer is departing as the chip giant grapples with the fallout from a major production stumble. Murthy Renduchintala, Intel’s chief engineer, is leaving the company after production issues led to a delay of its next generation processors.

4. Twitter contractors reportedly spied on the accounts of Beyoncé and other celebrities by creating fake help desk tickets. Former employees said Twitter’s internal controls were so lax that contractors were able to see users’ phone numbers, email addresses, and approximate locations by creating fake help desk requests, according to Bloomberg.

5. Internal source code from 50 high-profile companies including Microsoft, Disney, and Nintendo was leaked and posted online for people to access. The developer was reportedly able to collect the code thanks to misconfigured tools used by the companies that leave proprietary information exposed, and some firms may not even be aware of the massive leak yet.

6. Google extended its employee work-from-home policy through June 2021. “To give employees the ability to plan ahead, we are extending our global voluntary work from home option through June 30, 2021 for roles that don’t need to be in the office,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in an email to employees obtained by Business Insider.

7. Uber drivers are suing for their data, with major implications for the $200 billion gig economy. Drivers for the ride-hailing giant Uber are suing the firm in Europe to access their data, claiming the app uses different markers to determine who gets the best jobs.

8. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will appear before Congress for the first time on Wednesday, and experts expect questions to pertain to matters of competition, Amazon’s treatment of third-party sellers, and the company’s approach to acquisitions. The hearing may come at a challenging time for Bezos, who recently added $13 billion to his net worth in a single day as the coronavirus still surges in parts of the US, contributing to widespread job losses. 

9. New research from the email security company Tessian and a Stanford University expert found that remote employees are more distracted while working from home and that they make more mistakes when fatigued. Workers are also more likely to click on phishing emails if they feel pressure to respond quickly, the survey showed.

10. President Trump suggested that Twitter’s trending topics are ‘illegal’ because they make him look bad. Trump didn’t say which laws he believed Twitter is violating with its trends, which are determined automatically based on user activity. 

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Read the original article on Business Insider