Techmeme
March 16, 2021, 6:35 PM

Top News

Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Starting July 1, Google will drop its cut of revenue devs generate from Play Store from 30% to 15% on the first $1M earned per year, after Apple's similar move  —  - Google announced on Tuesday that it will cut Google Play app store fees to 15% on the first million dollars a developer makes …
Dara Khosrowshahi / London Evening Standard:
Uber's thinking on UK driver rights has evolved and worker flexibility “should not come at the expense of social protections”  —  T  —  hree weeks after I became CEO of Uber in 2017, our licence to operate in London was revoked.  It was not how I expected to start my new job …
Noam Cohen / Wired:
Wikimedia Foundation debuts Wikimedia Enterprise, a premium service for delivering Wikipedia content to companies like Google, but a free option will remain  —  The Big Four all lean on the encyclopedia at no cost.  With the launch of Wikimedia Enterprise, the volunteer project will change that—and possibly itself, too.
Dan Sullivan / Tampa Bay Times:
A Florida teen who hacked well-known Twitter accounts last summer and used them to ask for BTC, netting $100K+ worth, was sentenced to 3 years in a plea deal  —  Graham Ivan Clark, 18, agreed to plea guilty to fraud charges for a hack of several Twitter accounts last summer.
Leah Nylen / Politico:
Internal FTC docs: 2013 decision not to pursue a Google antitrust investigation was based on faulty logic and a misunderstanding of the internet's potential  —  Few moments in the power struggle between Washington and Silicon Valley have inspired more anger and bafflement than one in January 2013 …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google announces second-generation Nest Hub with sleep tracking, powered by a Soli radar chip, for $100, shipping on March 30  —  In deciding to not put a camera on what was initially called the Home Hub, Google made its first Assistant Smart Display ideal for nightstands.
Financial Times:
Huawei, Xiaomi, Tencent, and other Chinese internet companies remove Alibaba's popular UC Browser from app stores, following Xi's warning of a crackdown  —  Group accused over misleading advertising as Xi Jinping warns tech crackdown will continue  —  Chinese internet companies have pulled …
Bloomberg:
Huawei says it will start charging Apple, Samsung, and other manufacturers royalties for 5G patents, a potentially lucrative scheme as US sanctions bite  —  - Executives pledge to charge rates below its competitors  — Company is keen to expand its clout in global 5G networking
Rita Liao / TechCrunch:
Signal website and app communications are blocked in China, but the app is still available in the App Store; Greatfire: Signal's website was banned on March 15  —  Chinese users of the instant messenger Signal knew that the good times wouldn't last long.  The app, which is used …
James Vincent / The Verge:
Instagram says it's introducing new policies to limit interactions between teenagers and adults, including banning adults from DMing teens who don't follow them  —  Teen users will also be shown safety prompts when messaging ‘suspicious’ adults  —  Instagram is introducing …
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Intel's 11th Gen desktop chips launch, with the flagship Core i9-11900K sporting eight cores, two less than last gen, and boosted clock speeds of up to 5.3GHz  —  Rocket Lake-S looks to combine the best parts of Intel's 14nm process with its 10nm designs  —  Intel's next-generation desktop chips …
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Report: Apple will let the Russian government pre-install iOS apps in accordance with a new law; users can deselect the apps during setup or delete them after  —  Starting next month, Apple will allow the Russian government to pre-install apps on iPhones, iPads and other devices starting next month.
Sean O'Kane / The Verge:
GoPro refreshes its main smartphone app, now called Quik, and adds new features, including a private feed for organizing media  —  Another new direction for the camera company's software  —  GoPro is releasing a new version of its main smartphone app that will now be called “Quik.”
Ryan Weeks / The Block:
eToro, which lets users trade cryptocurrencies, commodities, stocks, and more, says it will go public via SPAC, valuing the company at $10.4B and raising $650M  —  Quick Take  — The investment platform is merging with FinTech Acquisition Corp. V  — The SPAC merger follows years …
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Facebook will begin testing its publishing platform, including website and newsletter tools, with a small group of writers, some of whom will be paid  —  Facebook will soon begin testing partnerships with a small group of independent writers for its new publishing platform, sources tell Axios.
William Turton / Bloomberg:
Leaked audio from a February 8 meeting reveals Parler's chief policy officer saying: “We are not going after misinformation in any way”  —  Leaked recordings of meetings detail role of Rebekah Mercer at social-media platform  —  Conservative donor Rebekah Mercer has been writing checks …
Charlie Osborne / ZDNet:
SEC charges a California trader for allegedly using misleading claims to promote penny stocks on Twitter to his ~13K followers and then selling his holdings  —  The agency says social media was used in an alleged pump-and-dump scam.  —  The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) …
More: Reuters
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Nvidia confirms that a now-removed driver for developers to test the Windows Subsystem for Linux could unlock RTX 3060's Ethereum cryptomining performance  —  Nvidia probably didn't mean to do this  —  Nvidia implemented a special system to reduce the hash rate of Ethereum mining on its new RTX 3060 graphics card last month.
Rachel Lerman / Washington Post:
Despite progress in making social media accessible to deaf users, some creators say captioning can often be lackluster, leaving services inaccessible to many  —  Captioning on social media can be hit or miss, making the experience sometimes alienating for deaf users
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
Socure, a cloud-based identity verification and fraud prevention startup, raises $100M led by Accel at a $1.3B valuation  —  - Value is an increase from 2020, when it was worth $360 million  — Socure helps verify that customers are who they say they are
More: TechCrunch
Sara Morrison / Vox:
TikTok says most users will be unable to opt out of personalized ads starting April 15; users in the European Union will be exempted due to GDPR  —  On April 15, TikTok's ad targeting will get more aggressive.  —  SHARE All sharing options  —  If you have a TikTok account …

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Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
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