Techmeme
January 30, 2021, 2:55 PM

Top News

Under the Hood:
Robinhood explains why it placed restrictions on certain securities over the past week, says its clearinghouse-mandated deposit for equities increased tenfold  —  With the extraordinary market activity this week, and the temporary restrictions we put in place on certain securities …
John Herrman / New York Times:
Reddit's uncommon qualities as a community platform, inspiring nihilism and humor, may explain why r/WallStreetBets' growth feels reminiscent of r/The_Donald  —  Reddit communities grow powerful in plain sight.  Why do they keep taking the world by surprise?
Jesse Westbrook / Bloomberg:
SEC says it “will closely review actions taken by regulated entities that may disadvantage investors” in trading certain securities  —  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, making its most specific comments about the recent mania in the stock market …
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
New York Times:
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Paresh Dave / Reuters:
Wall Street Journal:
Corbin Davenport / Android Police:
Google pulls federated chat app Element from the Play Store citing abusive content, despite it only being a client for Matrix servers  —  Element is a popular client for the federated chat protocol Matrix, and we highlighted it in our roundup of the best open-source alternatives to Google Hangouts last year …
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Canalys: smartphone shipments in China fell 4% YoY to 84M in Q4 2020 and shipments for 2020 fell 11% YoY to 330M, as iPhone's share jumped from 15% to 18% YoY  —  The impact of United States government sanctions on Huawei is continuing to hurt the company and dampen overall smartphone shipments in China …
Wall Street Journal:
Experts say Apple's App Tracking Transparency feature will damage Facebook's core business; the feature will limit Facebook's data collection from 85K+ iOS apps  —  New feature on iPhones will limit Facebook's ability to collect data from apps and prove that ads work
Lara O'Reilly / Business Insider:
Verizon Media says it is planning personalized features for Yahoo Mail, and around 500K users watched NFL streams in the Yahoo Mail app in tests in Q4 2020  —  - Verizon Media CEO Guru Gowrappan tells Insider the unit is preparing a “mega” product launch in the coming weeks.
Adam Satariano / New York Times:
Graphika: Huawei officials retweeted messages from fake accounts on Twitter to spread a pro-5G influence campaign in Belgium; Huawei is investigating the claim  —  A covert online push to sway telecommunications policy in favor of the Chinese company may presage a new twist in social manipulation.
Prachir Singh / Counterpoint Research:
Research: smartphone shipments in India fell 4% YoY to ~150M in 2020 and H2 2020 saw 100M+ shipments; among the top 5 brands, realme grew the most at 22% YoY  —  - The Indian smartphone market registered a modest 4% decline in the pandemic-hit year.  — The market crossed 100 million units …
Bloomberg:
Current and former staff say much of Amazon's struggles in gaming rest with the leadership of its gaming division, which reportedly has a budget of $500M/year  —  Mike Frazzini had never made a video game when he helped start Amazon Game Studios.  Eight years later, he has released two duds …

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:
App Spotlight: Autocomplete Address Via Google for Zoho CRM  —  App Spotlight brings you hand-picked solutions that enhance your Zoho apps and tools.  Visit Zoho Marketplace to explore all of our apps, integrations …
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.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Who Wins The AI Superapp Battle?, Apple's Consumer AI Victory, World Cup Automation Mistake
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.
Hard Fork:
Fable Ban Reversed + Dr. Dana Suskind on Parenting With A.I. + Prediction Market Drama
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Blitzy's Brian Elliott: Cursor And Claude Code Are Looking At Your Enterprise Code 'Through A Straw'
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
Re-Release: The Death of Hollywood? W/ Allan Loeb
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Great Chat:
Maybe Twitter isn't real life
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:55 PM ET, January 30, 2021.

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.

More News

Chloe Sorvino / Forbes:
Theodore Schleifer / Vox:
Nick Statt / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Reuters:
Mike Isaac / New York Times: