Techmeme
February 8, 2021, 12:55 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Charles Fitzgerald / Platformonomics:
Analysis: in 2020, Amazon's capital expenditure grew 69% YoY to $54B, Microsoft's grew 14% YoY to $20.6B, and Google's declined over 5% YoY to $22.3B  —  It is time for our annual bulletin to CAPEX obsessives (previous updates from 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 as well as earlier installments).
Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
Review: in 200+ charging docs filed in relation to the Capitol siege, 73 reference Facebook, 24 reference YouTube, 20 mention Instagram, and 8 mention Parler  —  Just after the Capitol Hill riots on January 6, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook chief operating officer admitted the company's ability to enforce its own rules was “never perfect.”
New York Times:
Julia Chan / Sensor Tower Blog:
Sensor Tower data on top apps worldwide: Telegram led with 63M downloads in Jan. 2021, as Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger downloads fell from Dec. 2020  —  Telegram was the most downloaded non-gaming app worldwide for January 2021 with more than 63 million installs, 3.8 times its downloads in January 2020.
Reuters:
China issues new anti-monopoly rules putting more pressure on its local tech giants like Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com  —  BEIJING (Reuters) - China's market regulator released new anti-monopoly guidelines on Sunday that target internet platforms, tightening existing restrictions faced by the country's tech giants.
Michael Vizard / VentureBeat:
Vendia, which offers a serverless SaaS product to share data and associated code across multicloud environments, raises $15.5M Series A led by Canvas Ventures  —  Vendia revealed it has raised $15.5 million to advance development of a Vendia Share service that enables IT teams to share data and code …
Karen Hao / MIT Technology Review:
Study of 130+ facial recognition data sets compiled over 43 years: driven by ML's data needs, researchers gradually abandoned asking for people's consent  —  The largest ever study of facial-recognition data shows how much the rise of deep learning has fueled a loss of privacy.  —  hide
Julian Chokkattu / Wired:
A look at Metalenz, which aims to replace multiple lens elements in smartphone cameras with a single lens system that utilizes optical metasurfaces technology  —  The optics in your smartphone have been pretty much the same for more than a decade.  That's about to change.
Carolina Milanesi / Fast Company:
Interview with Samsung VP Jaeyeon Jung on the new Galaxy SmartTag and how it fits into the SmartThings ecosystem, which as of December had 66M active users  —  While the Apple world waits patiently for an “AirTags” announcement, Samsung is already shipping its remote location device, the Galaxy SmartTag.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Myanmar's new military government orders local telecom operators and ISPs to block Twitter and Instagram, days after imposing a similar blackout on Facebook  —  Updated at 1.46AM PT February 6: Telenor says Myanmar Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) has directed all mobile operators …
Jon Fingas / Engadget:

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
Copilot to autopilot: Why no single safeguard is enough  —  Microsoft designed a layered model that lets an AI agent resolve network incidents on its own within defined boundaries.
Will Reed:
The best sales leaders aren't job hunting.  Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach.  —  Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.
Zoho:
UK tax compliance with Zoho Books  —  The evolving tax landscape in the UK has added an additional responsibility to business owners, accountants, and bookkeepers to ensure their choice of accounting software supports compliance …
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

Invest Like the Best:
Christina Cacioppo - Building an Enduring Software Company in the Age of AI
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Grit:
The 20-Year Bet to Make Fusion Energy Work | Jeff Lawson
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Acquired:
Seinfeld
Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.
Subscribe to Acquired.
Lenny's Podcast:
Inside the black box of AI: How AI models actually think | Emmanuel Ameisen (Anthropic)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
Anthropic IPO Panic, A Spy At OpenAI?, The Great Food Slop Debate
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.
Great Chat:
What happened to tech's backbone?
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:55 AM ET, February 8, 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

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
Will Oremus / OneZero :
Washington Post:

Earlier Picks

Wall Street Journal:
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Ashley Gold / Axios:
Emily Birnbaum / Protocol: