Techmeme
February 27, 2021, 4:05 AM

Top News

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 …
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Inside Google Stadia's failure as sources say it missed targets for controller sales and MAUs by hundreds of thousands after spending tens of millions on games  —  The tech giant likes to test and tweak.  Stadia promised to change the industry and failed to deliver.
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.
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 …
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 …
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 …
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Twitter's Super Follows represent a surge of interest in tools that let individuals create real economic value for themselves on social networks  —  Will Super Follows shake up the media industry?  —  16 hr ago  —  Today let's talk about Twitter's move into subscriptions …
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Tiffany Hsu / New York Times:
The use of “+” to name on-demand services was fine when streaming was new but has become a cliché and a minus  —  An idea that seemed like a real plus when streaming was newer has fallen into cliché.  —  First there was e.  —  Then came i.  —  Now it's +.
Financial Times:
Treasury secretary Janet Yellen told G20 ministers that the US will drop its “safe harbor” provision for tech companies, allowing a global deal on digital tax  —  Biden administration drops insistence on ‘safe harbour’ for companies, opening door to agreement
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.
John Beck / Rest of World:
Social media platforms are struggling with how to handle ISIS-related fundraising campaigns, which are often slipping through by disguising as humanitarianism  —  Social media platforms are struggling to figure out how to deal with fundraising campaigns that flirt with the boundaries of what's legal.
Bloomberg:
Sources: SentinelOne, which develops AI-based endpoint security for all devices and services in a network, is preparing for an IPO that could value it at $10B+  —  - SentinelOne is interviewing banks and might list this year  — Company could seek a valuation of more than $10 billion

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.
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
Simplifying benefits management in Zoho People  —  Let's consider a new hire on their first day of orientation.  They receive a brief introduction to the benefits plans, and almost immediately, questions start to surface …
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:
AI Pioneer Jürgen Schmidhuber: AI Already Feels Pain, Loves, and Is Self-Aware
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Inside Podcasting's Fight Over Netflix, YouTube, and Creator Control
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.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Sam Blond from Monaco
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Training Data:
Anthropic's Katelyn Lesse & Angela Jiang: Building an Ecosystem, not a Walled Garden
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.
Invest Like the Best:
John Kim - How to Raise a Few Billion Dollars
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 4:05 AM 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

Tim Anderson / The Register:
Jason Del Rey / Vox:
Jan Stryjak / Counterpoint Research:
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:

Earlier Picks

Cecilia Kang / New York Times:
Katie Deighton / Wall Street Journal:
Vignesh Ramachandran / Stanford News:
Ryan Mac / BuzzFeed News:
Reuters:
Megan Graham / CNBC: