Techmeme
February 27, 2021, 2:55 PM

Top News

CNN:
In a hearing with US lawmakers, ex-SolarWinds CEO blamed an intern for the “solarwinds123” password leak discovered in 2019 that had exposed a SolarWinds server  —  FireEye CEO on how the SolarWinds hack was discovered  —  Washington (CNN)Current and former top executives …
Sarah E. Needleman / Wall Street Journal:
Profile of Roblox, which outsources game development to its own players and says more than 300 of such developers earned $100K+ in 2020, ahead of its March IPO  —  The company runs a free social platform with videogames made by its own players.  Its stock-market debut will test investor appetite …
Andrew Liszewski / Gizmodo:
Genealogy tracker MyHeritage releases Deep Nostalgia, a Live Photo-like feature for old photos, which uses AI to show subjects prepping for their portrait  —  It's hard to feel connected to someone who's gone through a static photo.  So a company called MyHeritage who provides automatic AI …
Financial Times:
Sources: UK is preparing to announce a new tech visa and a £375M fund, with matching VC funding, to be made available to some promising tech startups  —  Up to £375m of state funds to be matched by venture capital and made available for promising companies
Cecilia D'Anastasio / Wired:
Sources detail Google's troubles with game development as the company couldn't stomach the complicated creative process amid Stadia's poor streaming numbers  —  The tech giant hired 150 game developers for Stadia Games and Entertainment, only to lay them all off.  Sources say it never gave the studios a chance.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Facebook's NPE division launches BARS, a TikTok-like app for rappers to create and share their raps using professionally created beats, in closed beta  —  Facebook's internal R&D group, NPE Team, is today launching its next experimental app, called BARS.  The app makes it possible for rappers …
Bloomberg:
The SEC suspends trading of 15 lesser-known stocks after suspicious social media promotion raised concerns that their stock prices were artificially inflated  —  - Wall Street watchdog temporarily halts trading in 15 stocks  — Regulator says it's actively monitoring online message boards
Marlow Stern / The Daily Beast:
Advanced deepfakes of Tom Cruise are going viral on TikTok, with the account deeptomcruise amassing 200K+ followers in a few days  —  FOR THE LOVE OF XENU  —  Be afraid.  Be very afraid.  —  Three days ago, a TikTok account going by @deeptomcruise began posting video clips …
Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch:
Interview with co-CEO of Jumia, whose stock is up 3,000%+ in the last year, on African e-commerce, the company's path to profitability, and more  —  This month, African e-commerce giant Jumia released its second full-year financials for Q4 and its fiscal year 2020.
Cade Metz / New York Times:
How Anduril and other startups are building military ready, self-piloted drones, away from Silicon Valley, where such projects have become politically untenable  —  While much has been made of tech's unwillingness to work with the Pentagon, start-ups are still plumbing the industry's decades-long ties to the military.
Meaghan Tobin / Rest of World:
Experts say lessons marketed by digital education platforms like Byju's and Yuanfudao are more an innovation in test-prep delivery than in learning outcomes  —  Investors have poured billions of dollars into digital education platforms like Byju's and Yuanfudao.  But are students learning anything?

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
Zoho Books introduces the Landlords edition in the UK  —  Managing rental properties in the UK has long involved a messy mix of spread-out receipts, manual spreadsheets, and end-of-year tax scrambles.
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

Channels with Peter Kafka:
Lucas Shaw on Warner Bros' Limbo, Netflix's Anxiety, and Hollywood's Sort-of Comeback
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Big Technology Podcast:
How China Caught U.S. AI — With Grace Shao
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.
Training Data:
Building the Automated AGI Lab: Core Automation's Jerry Tworek and Rohan Anil
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Tony Xu from DoorDash
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Invest Like the Best:
Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
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, February 27, 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

John Beck / Rest of World:
Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Tiffany Hsu / New York Times:
Cecilia Kang / New York Times:
Vignesh Ramachandran / Stanford News:
Ryan Mac / BuzzFeed News: