Techmeme: Threads, which aims to create a user-friendly asynchronous chat platform for coworkers, comes out of stealth with $10.5M Series A from Sequoia (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Top News

Mariella Moon / Engadget:

Samsung begins mass production of 512GB embedded Universal Flash Storage (eUFS) 3.0 chips for smartphones, with speeds of up to 2,100 MB/s — Samsung's future phones, including the Galaxy Fold, will have read and write speeds comparable with snappy ultra-fast laptops.

More: Samsung Global Newsroom, CNET, 9to5Google, BGR, Neowin, SlashGear, Android Authority, and Gizchina

Eugene Wei / Remains of the Day:

An in-depth analysis of social media platforms through the lens of social capital theory and why we should think of them as “Status as a Service” businesses — Editor's Note 1: I have no editor. — Editor's Note 2: I would like to assure new subscribers to this blog that most my posts are not as long as this one.

Tweets: @eugenewei, @ingridlunden, @sriramk, @dkthomp, @naval, @carnage4life, @asemota, @kevinakwok, @carnage4life, @carnage4life, and @besvinick

The Keyword:

Google and DeepMind are using AI to predict the power output of wind farms 36 hours ahead of actual generation, boosting economic value of wind energy by ~20% — Carbon-free technologies like renewable energy help combat climate change, but many of them have not reached their full potential.

More: MIT Technology Review, SlashGear, The Verge, The Register, Engadget, Forbes, VentureBeat, and 9to5Google

Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:

Russian court hands former Russian cybersecurity chief and a Kaspersky Lab executive lengthy prison sentences after being convicted on treason charges — A Russian court has handed down lengthy prison terms for two men convicted on treason charges for allegedly sharing information …

More: NBC News, WinBuzzer, The Daily Beast, New York Times, and Dark Reading

Federal Trade Commission:

FTC settles with supplement maker in first case involving allegedly fake paid Amazon reviews to gain a five-star rating, will suspend most of $12.8M judgment — Commission also alleges weight-loss supplement claims were deceptive — The Federal Trade Commission today announced …

More: Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Search Engine Land, The Verge, Washington Post, Mashable, Engadget, CNET, Digital Trends, TechSpot, and SlashGear

Tweets: @mblumenthal, @itsnicolenguyen, @pmkoom, @lindagrahovec, @ftc, @ben_hebert, and @eliotwb

Katyanna Quach / The Register:

IBM apologizes after some US online job application forms asked for the ethnicity of applicants and used racial slurs, says the questions have been removed — Tech giants under fire? Hold my beer, says Big Blue as it spins up race slur recruitment websites

More: Ars Technica, Washington Post, Bloomberg, AOL, Fortune, NextShark, The Hill, WRAL TechWire, and Beyond Search

Tweets: @richparknyc and @theregister

Ian Allison / CoinDesk:

Nivaura, which aims to use blockchains to automate the lifecycle for the issuance of financial instruments, raises $20M led by the London Stock Exchange — Capital markets blockchain startup Nivaura has raised a total of $20 million with the closing of its second seed extension round led by the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG).

More: FinSMEs, Tech.eu, Finextra Research Headlines, and The Block

Tweets: @prestonjbyrne and @travisscher

Andrii Degeler / Tech.eu:

UK-based Tessian, which applies machine learning to enterprise email security to eliminate threats, raises $42M Series B led by Sequoia Capital — The US-based VC firm Sequoia Capital has led a $42 million funding round in Tessian, a cybersecurity startup headquartered in London; Latitude …

More: EU-Startups, Bloomberg, and PE Hub Blog

Manish Singh / VentureBeat:

Spotify launches in India with monthly premium tier starting at 119 rupees or ~$1.67, says free tier users in India can stream any song on demand on mobile — A year after Spotify publicly expressed its intention to launch in India, the music streaming company has finally delivered.

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Threads, which aims to create a user-friendly asynchronous chat platform for coworkers, comes out of stealth with $10.5M Series A from Sequoia — The rapid rise of Slack has ushered in a new wave of apps, all aiming to solve one challenge: creating a user-friendly platform where coworkers can have productive conversations.

More: VentureBeat and threadsinc. Tweets: @jess

Gus Garcia-Roberts / USA Today:

Twitter has permanently suspended Jacob Wohl for creating and operating fake accounts, after he shared plans to make deceptive accounts before the 2020 election — Twitter announced that it is permanently suspending Jacob Wohl, a 21-year-old Internet hoaxer and supporter of President Donald Trump …

James Vincent / The Verge:

FedEx begins trialling SameDay Bot, an autonomous robot that can travel at 10 MPH, for same-day deliveries in Memphis, with plans to expand elsewhere — Trials of the robot, which has a top speed of 10 mph, will begin later this year — Startups do it. Amazon does it.

More: Fortune, CNET, and Reuters

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

D-Wave announces its next-gen quantum computing platform with 5,000 qubits, up from 2,000 qubits in its current system, planned to come to market in mid-2020 — D-Wave, the well-funded quantum computing company, today announced its next-gen quantum computing platform with 5,000 qubits, up from 2,000 in the company's current system.

More: VentureBeat and dwavesys.com. Thanks:@kkutz

Katie Roof / Wall Street Journal:

Documents show that Peter Thiel's Founders Fund has returns that are at least 3X better than the industry average, despite significant turnover in leadership — Silicon Valley investment firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, looks to rebuild team with a high-profile hire

More: Business Insider. Tweets: @briansin, @katie_roof, @jasonlk, and @katie_roof

Isobel Asher Hamilton / Business Insider:

Sensor Tower: TikTok passed 1B downloads on Android and iOS, excluding Android installs in China; 663M downloads came in 2018, beating Instagram's 444M — - Chinese short-form video app TikTok has been downloaded 1 billion times across Android and iOS, according to Sensor Tower figures.

More: TechCrunch, Sensor Tower Blog, CNET, Mashable, TechNode, and Adweek

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:

Fast, affordable law for startups — Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better. We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts. Join the waitlist for early access!

Equals:

Stop vibe coding analytics — Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards. Build once, iterate for years.

Zoho:

Deep dive into SalesIQ's Summer '26 release: 40+ features for the agentic era — We've already introduced you to Zoho SalesIQ's Summer '26 release, our annual release, and the one where SalesIQ enters a new territory: the era of agentic intelligence.

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:

OpenAI's Plan To Merge Chat And Agents — With Greg Brockman

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

Encore: Inside Joe Weisenthal's brain

Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.

Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.

The Talk Show With John Gruber:

'Taking Drugs to Get Fat', With John Moltz

The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.

Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.

Invest Like the Best:

Etched - Building AI Hardware to Make Inference Faster and Cheaper

The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

Uncapped with Jack Altman:

Trae and Delian from Founders Fund

Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.

Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:55 AM ET, February 27, 2019.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.