Techmeme
February 8, 2021, 8:40 AM

Top News

Steve Kovach / CNBC:
Filing: Tesla has bought $1.5B worth of bitcoin and says it will start accepting bitcoin as a payment method for its products in the future  —  - Tesla announced in an SEC filing Monday that it bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin.  — The company also said it would start accepting bitcoin as a payment method for its products.
Wall Street Journal:
Bloomberg:
Hyundai and its affiliate Kia say they are not in talks with Apple to develop an autonomous vehicle; Hyundai shares fell ~8.4% in Seoul, while Kia dropped 14%.  —  - Apple's plans for own-branded EV are being intensely watched  — Hyundai's new EV platform can charge cars to 80% in 18 minutes
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.”
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).
TechCrunch:
Clubhouse is now blocked in China after a brief uncensored period during which it was rapidly gathering steam  —  Thousands of Chinese users suddenly found themselves unable to access Clubhouse on early Monday evening as the country prepared to start the week-long Lunar New Year holiday.
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.
Bloomberg:
Japan's Renesas Electronics says it has agreed to acquire UK-based Dialog Semiconductor, whose clients include Apple and Samsung, for ~$5.9B  —  - Transaction marks latest takeover of a U.K. technology firm  — Semiconductor M&A more than doubled to $144 billion last year
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Pony.ai raises $100M extension to its Series C round at a post-money valuation of $5.3B, up from $3B in Feb. 2020, bringing its total raised to $1B+  —  Self-driving car startup Pony.ai today announced that it raised $100 million in an extension of its series C round.
More: PYMNTS.com

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI that works  —  Tribe builds tech for top AI companies.  Get in touch to learn how our bench of 500+ engineers and researchers can accelerate your roadmap.
Kulkan Security:
Hire Kulkan as your penetration testing partner  —  Kulkan prioritizes deep-dive manual security reviews, dissecting your software and infrastructure to find issues that once remediated can truly reduce security risk.
Zoho:
Environmental impact of remote support: Reducing carbon footprints in IT  —  Information technology is essential for powering core business processes and facilitating communication.
Mastodon:
Donate to Mastodon  —  Mastodon gGmbH, the non-profit behind the open-source software powering the social web, relies entirely on support from users like you.  Donate directly with a credit card or through Patreon.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Magatte Wade, Unlocking Prosperity in Africa (#53)
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Wed. 04/17 - Copilots Or The Biggest Model Wins? The Competing AI Visions.
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:40 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

Earlier Picks

Julian Chokkattu / Wired:
Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
Will Oremus / OneZero :
Washington Post:
Karen Hao / MIT Technology Review:
Adam Ciralsky / Vanity Fair: