Alex Kantrowitz / Big Technology: The FTC and DOJ antitrust divisions are underfunded, as current and ex-staffers say tech giants use close personal ties and deep pockets to stymie regulation  —  U.S. regulators don´t have enough money to properly check the tech giants, according to firsthand accounts

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg: Alibaba unveils Xunxi, a pilot factory it has been operating for three years for developing tech aimed at helping manufacturers adapt quickly to consumer demand  —  - Daniel Zhang is spearheading a drive into new manufacturing  — Company wants to provide back-end technology to manufacturers

Annie Palmer / CNBC: DOJ charges six people who allegedly bribed Amazon employees and contractors since at least 2017 in a scheme to benefit some third-party sellers  —  - The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday charged six individuals who allegedly bribed Amazon employees and contractors …

Richard Lawler / Engadget: Epic says it will shut down Fortnite: Save the World on macOS on September 23rd  —  Epic and Apple´s squabble will pull the plug on Mac support for this PvE version of ‘Fortnite.’  —  Fortnite: Save the World — a castle building players-vs-zombies version of the game that preceded …

R. Dallon Adams / TechRepublic: IBM launches Mayflower Autonomous Ship, an AI-powered research vessel off the coast of England, with a trans-Atlantic crossing scheduled in 2021  —  The research vessel pushed off from Plymouth, England; a nod to the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower´s historic trip.

Eric Geller / Politico: US charges 3 alleged state-backed Iranian hackers with stealing sensitive info on aerospace and satellite tech from 2015-2019, detailing spear phishing attack  —  The hackers allegedly impersonated real U.S. citizens in the targeted industries.  —  A participant looks at lines of code …

Christine Hall / Crunchbase News: Alloy, which offers an identity verification service for the financial services industry, raises $40M Series B, bringing its total raised to $56M  —  Alloy, an identity operating system for the financial services industry, raised $40 million in Series B funding.

Sara Fischer / Axios: Facebook launches Facebook Business Suite, which lets SMBs manage their pages and profiles across Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger from a single interface  —  Facebook on Thursday launched a new app named Facebook Business Suite that lets small businesses manage their pages and profiles across Facebook …

Casey Newton / The Verge: A critique of The Social Dilemma documentary, which seems to exist only to stoke fear and outrage while promoting a distorted view of how social platforms work  —  The world is more complicated than filmmakers want to believe  —  I. A dilemma  —  On Sunday night, after being encouraged …

Georgi Kantchev / Wall Street Journal: Belarus was once a magnet for tech startups, thanks to cheap labor, but protests against Lukashenko and brutal crackdowns could change that  —  Crackdown on protesters urging new elections sours sentiment around the industry; ‘We live in fear’  —  In recent years, cheap labor and political stability …