TECH

Facebook is again pushing back on new Apple privacy rules for its mobile devices, this time saying in full page newspaper ads that the social media giant is standing up for small businesses.

In ads that ran in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other national newspapers Wednesday, Facebook said Apple's new rules “limit businesses' ability to run personalized ads and reach their customers effectively."

“While limiting how personalized ads can be used does impact larger companies like us, these changes will be devastating to small businesses adding to the many challenges they face right now," the ad states.

Advanced Micro Devices is buying Xilinx for $35bn in an all-stock deal that will combine the two Silicon Valley chip-makers and accelerate an already rapid-fire pace of mergers and buyouts in the industry.

The deal announced on Tuesday puts AMD in a place it wants to be; competing more fiercely with Intel at a time when a global pandemic is driving demand for tech ever higher.

More Zoom meetings, more orders online and more upgrades for companies trying to meet new demands of millions staying at home have led to a seemingly insatiable appetite for computer chips.

In a new court filing, TikTok leaders make clear just how much is at stake in a prolonged battle with the Trump administration: If TikTok were banned for two months, up to half of its users in America would never come back. If the ban persisted for six months, 90% of TikTok users would be gone forever, according to a top TikTok executive.

"We would not be able to make up for lost ground, because people who would have downloaded TikTok will have already turned to other competing platforms such as Byte, Triller, Zynn and the Reels feature on Instagram," Vanessa Pappas, TikTok's interim global head, wrote. Pappas' submission was part of a TikTok lawsuit urging a federal judge to halt a ban on the app from Trump from taking effect on Sunday.

Facebook Inc fired an employee who had criticized Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s decision not to take action against inflammatory posts by U.S. President Donald Trump this month, citing his tweet challenging a colleague’s silence on the issue.

Brandon Dail, a user interface engineer in Seattle, wrote on Twitter that he was dismissed for publicly scolding a colleague who had refused to include a statement of support for the Black Lives Matter movement on developer documents he was publishing.

Dail sent the tweet a day after joining dozens of employees, including the six other engineers on his team, in abandoning their desks and tweeting objections to Zuckerberg’s handling of Trump’s posts in a rare protest at the social media company.

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - Technology companies are developing their own contact tracing systems to help prevent coronavirus outbreaks in their offices as countries begin to ease lockdown measures and a return to the workplace is in the offing.

Silicon Valley company Juniper Networks Inc (JNPR.N) plans to equip its about 10,000 employees with work identification badge holders that have a Bluetooth chip that will help to record a worker’s movements and interactions in the office, company vice president Jeff Aaron said in an interview.

The system employs Wi-Fi routers and access points from Juniper Network’s unit Mist that will communicate with the Bluetooth chips on the badges. The data collected will help determine which employees need to be tested and isolate after a colleague tests positive for the new coronavirus.