Techmeme
October 5, 2020, 9:20 AM

Top News

Jody Serrano / Gizmodo:
Jeff Horwitz / Wall Street Journal:
A document from Facebook's law firm shows how the company might fight an antitrust lawsuit and any attempts to force a divestiture of WhatsApp or Instagram  —  Social giant prepares defense against antitrust scrutiny from federal enforcers  —  A government effort to break up Facebook Inc …
Sriram Krishan / The Observer Effect:
Q&A with Daniel Ek on his pledge to invest €1B in European moonshots, shadowing CEOs like Zuckerberg and Hastings, Spotify's impact on the world, and more  —  Welcome to the second interview on ‘The Observer Effect’.  We are lucky to have one of the most influential founders/CEOs …
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Facebook says it is rolling out shopping tools for IGTV globally and will add them to Reels later this year  —  Instagram is pushing its in-app shopping into even more parts of its app.  The company is adding shopping tools to two new features: IGTV and Reels.
More: The Verge and Adweek
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Google Nest Audio review: much improved audio quality, Assistant performs a lot of tasks, and attractive price, but bass and volume are limited  —  Google's latest smart speaker has good sound and an attractive price  —  Four years is an eternity in the modern tech product world …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Ola fails to get London ride-hailing license renewed over public safety concerns, says it will appeal and keep operating; Uber recently won its appeal in London  —  Just six days after Uber won its appeal against London transportation regulators to continue operating in London for another 18 months …
Surabhi Agarwal / The Economic Times:
After pushback from Indian developers, Google says it will delay the enforcement of its 30% cut on IAPs from Play Store in India from Sept. 2021 to April 2022  —  Bengaluru: Google deferred the enforcement of 30% commission on in-app purchases of digital goods from its Play Store in India …
Benedict Evans:
US no longer sets the agenda for the internet, as 80%+ of users are now outside the US, and China has more smartphone users than US and western Europe combined  —  When Netscape launched in 1994 and kicked off the consumer internet, there were maybe 100m PCs on earth, and over half of them were in the USA.
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Ten US states, including NY and NJ, that account for ~21% of the US population have released a COVID-19 contact tracing app based on Apple and Google's API  —  - New York and New Jersey both released Covid-19 apps this week, bringing the total to 10 states which have published alert apps using technology …
Liam Frost / Decrypt:
DappRadar: Ethereum's transaction volume skyrocketed to $119.5B in Q3 2020, growing nearly 1,200% from Q2, while DeFi apps accounted for 99% of that volume  —  Transaction volume on the Ethereum blockchain reached $119.5 billion in Q3 2020, surging by nearly 1,200% compared to the previous quarter …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
GrubMarket, an online store that delivers farm produce to consumers and other stores, raises $60M Series D, sources say at a ~$500M valuation  —  Companies that have leveraged technology to make the procurement and delivery of food more accessible to more people have been seeing a big surge …

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More News

Kentaro Iwamoto / Nikkei Asia:
Nicole Perlroth / New York Times:

Earlier Picks

Raymond Zhong / New York Times:
Aarian Marshall / Wired:
Rebecca Jennings / Vox:
Neil Cybart / Above Avalon:
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: