Techmeme
February 24, 2021, 12:25 PM

Top News

Nick Clegg / About Facebook:
Facebook defends its stance in Australia, says it invested $600M since 2018 to support the news industry and plans at least $1B more over the next three years  —  Last week, in a move that will have felt abrupt and dramatic to many, Facebook announced it was stopping the sharing of news on its service in Australia.
Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:
Georgia Hitch / ABC:
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
California's 2018 net neutrality law, SB 822, can go into effect after a California judge declined to grant the telecom industry a preliminary injunction  —  It survived challenges from Trump's DOJ, and now one from telecom industry too  —  Net neutrality died a horrible death in 2017 …
Taylor Lyles / The Verge:
HP says it is acquiring gaming peripheral company HyperX for $425M, giving the company a major foothold in the gaming accessory market  —  The acquisition means HP owns the HyperX brand  —  HP has announced that it is acquiring gaming peripheral company HyperX for $425 million.
Nikkei Asia:
New York Times:
Myanmar's draconian draft cybersecurity law follows a yearslong effort to build out Myanmar's surveillance capabilities, following cues from China  —  As the military seized power again, the generals moved quickly to take the country offline, criminalize online dissent and block social media.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTube to roll out a “supervised” account option in beta in the coming months in more than 80 countries, aimed at kids that are too old for YouTube Kids  —  YouTube is launching a PG version of the internet's biggest video service.  —  A new “supervised” YouTube account option …
Selena Deckelmann / The Mozilla Blog:
Chris Welch / The Verge:
LG says that it will license its webOS software to other TV brands, such as RCA, Ayonz, and Konka; LG's redesigned webOS 5.0 version will not be included  —  The modern webOS is no longer exclusive to LG's TV lineup  —  LG tonight announced that the company's webOS smart TV platform will soon be found on TVs from other brands.
Maggie Miller / The Hill:
At Tuesday's SolarWinds hearing, Microsoft and FireEye urged Congress to create mandatory breach reporting requirements for companies  —  Top executives from Microsoft and FireEye on Tuesday urged Congress to create mandatory breach reporting requirements for companies following …
Jane Wakefield / BBC:
Portland ends partnership with Sidewalk Labs to track mobility; Sidewalk spin-off Replica says it was unwilling to share granular data requested by the city  —  A smart city project started by Google's sister firm Sidewalk Labs to track mobility patterns in the US city of Portland has been shelved.
More: Insider
Stephen Warwick / iMore:
Some M1 Mac owners report a worryingly large number of writes to their Macs' SSDs, though in some cases it could be explained by faulty monitoring tools  —  “If this is accurate, some of these machines aren't going to last half a year”  —  What you need to know
TechCrunch:
Sources: virtual events company Hopin is looking to raise ~$400M Series C at a $5B+ pre-money valuation, after raising $125M at a $2.125B valuation last year  —  Virtual events platform Hopin is hopin' for a mega valuation.  —  According to multiple sources who spoke with TechCrunch …
Kris Holt / Engadget:
Facebook says it is testing more tools to combat child exploitation on its platform, including a measure warning users of “non-malicious sharing” of viral memes  —  Facebook says it is testing more tools to help the social network prevent people from sharing content that  —  exploits children.
Bloomberg:
Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries, which controls 14% of the market, has recently expanded into France, Germany, Italy, and Spain  —  Winston Churchill, it's often said, quipped that you should never let a good crisis go to waste.  Tatyana Bakalchuk would agree.
Square - Investor Relations:
Square announces it spent $170M to acquire 3,318 bitcoins at an average price of $51,236, following its earlier $50M bet on the cryptocurrency  —  Square also announced a $170 million purchase in bitcoin as part of its ongoing commitment to the cryptocurrency
Jennifer Smith / Wall Street Journal:
Berkshire Grey, which develops AI-powered pick-and-place retail and warehouse robots, will go public via SPAC, valuing the company at $2.7B and raising $413M  —  The agreement comes as ‘exploding’ e-commerce demand drives investor interest in supply-chain automation
Alfred Ng / The Markup:
Auditing of algorithms can help address bias but there needs to be industry standards/regulations to hold the auditors or the companies that use them to account  —  For more than a decade, journalists and researchers have been writing about the dangers of relying on algorithms to make weighty decisions …
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Hubilo, which helps businesses host virtual and hybrid events with real-time analytics, raises $23.5M Series A led by Lightspeed Venture Partners  —  Hubilo, a platform that helps businesses of all sizes host virtual and hybrid events and gain access to real-time data and analytics …

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Casey Newton / Platformer:
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Josh Sisco / The Information:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
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