Techmeme
February 28, 2021, 1:55 AM

Top News

Chris Dixon / Andreessen Horowitz:
NFTs are great for creators because they remove intermediaries, enable granular price tiering, and eliminate customer acquisition costs by making users owners  —  In his classic 2008 essay “1000 True Fans,” Kevin Kelly predicted that the internet would transform the economics of creative activities:
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 …
Jason Aten / Inc.com:
A look at Clubhouse's privacy flaws: room audio is “temporarily” saved for trust and safety purposes, user accounts or personal data can't be deleted, and more  —  Clubhouse was sort of perfectly made for the pandemic.  People aren't going out, and they're desperately searching for social connections and entertainment.
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
NBC News:
Google, Salesforce, and Microsoft are having mixed results in building statewide vaccination sign-up websites, due to difficulties in integrating county systems  —  As the nation takes on one of the largest logistical challenges in history with the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccination program …
Andrew Jacobs / New York Times:
Critics say the policies of Amazon, Google, and Facebook from the early days of the pandemic to restrict the sale of medical-grade masks are now outdated  —  Scientists are urging Americans to upgrade their face coverings.  But Amazon, Google and Facebook restrict the sale of medical-grade masks.
Tatiana Cirisano / Billboard:
How platforms like Spotify and tools like Community, Audigent, and Unitea help artists find their superfans and target them for monetization opportunities  —  New tech that allows artists to interact with superfans — and turn their data into dollars — promises to open long-term revenue streams
Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
How ACLU and activist Kade Crockford convinced Massachusetts lawmakers to pass a police reform bill banning the use of facial recognition tech in criminal cases  —  Massachusetts is one of the first states to put legislative guardrails around the use of facial recognition technology in criminal investigations.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Reimagine your photos with a prompt  —  Our new native image generation and editing is state-of-the-art, and ranked #1 in the world.  Try it for free in the Gemini app.
F5:
Securing AI models and agents in the enterprise  —  The new AI stack creates a highly dynamic attack surface, and traditional controls aren't keeping up.  F5's recent acquisition will bring advanced AI guardrails to enterprise apps.
Zoho:
The next big growth move is building a marketplace  —  This is a guest post by Webkul.If you're running a business on Zoho Commerce, you already have a powerful platform.  It's perfect for managing your products …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Decoder with Nilay Patel:
How chatbots — and their makers — are enabling AI psychosis
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Lenny's Podcast:
Why experts writing AI evals is creating the fastest-growing companies in history | Brendan Foody (CEO of Mercor)
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
I tried Zuckerberg's $800 Ray-Bans. Are they the future? With Alex Heath
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:
Are 95% of Businesses Really Getting No Return on AI Investment? — With Aaron Levie
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.
[trading places]:
sim desai hiive🐝 • emily zheng pitchbook⚾️📓 • vlad voroninski helm.ai 🤖🚙 • bytedance 🫦🕺🏻
a very bad podcast about broken unicorns & busted carry hosted by dave mcclure and aman verjee
Subscribe to [trading places].
The Social Radars:
Founder Mode: Christina Cacioppo, Founder & CEO, Vanta
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:55 AM ET, February 28, 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

Meaghan Tobin / Rest of World:
John Beck / Rest of World:
Cade Metz / New York Times:
Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Cecilia D'Anastasio / Wired:
Bloomberg:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Marlow Stern / The Daily Beast:
Cecilia Kang / New York Times: