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March 23, 2021, 2:05 PM
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Bloomberg:
Sources: Microsoft is in talks to buy Discord for more than $10B; one source says Discord is more likely to go public than sell itself  —  Microsoft Corp. is in talks to acquire Discord Inc., a video-game chat community, for more than $10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Nintendo will use new Nvidia graphics chip in its 2021 Switch upgrade, helping the console deliver 4K on TVs via Nvidia's DLSS  —  - The Nvidia system-on-chip will also add memory and CPU upgrade  — Nintendo's console refresh targeting year-end shopping season
Andrei Frumusanu / AnandTech:
OnePlus debuts 6.55" OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9R and 6.7" OnePlus 9 Pro, all with 120Hz displays, Android 11, on-screen fingerprint sensors, and 128GB base storage  —  Today OnePlus is launching their new 2021 line-up of flagship devices, the new OnePlus 9 series.
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
OnePlus unveils the $159 OnePlus Watch, available April 14, which has a circular 1.39" display, blood oxygen tracking, fast charging, and does not run Wear OS
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Review of the $730 OnePlus 9: has a high-quality 50MP ultra-wide camera, Snapdragon 888 makes for great performance, but main camera lacks image stabilization
Alex Hern / The Guardian:
Facebook docs show how it moderates users in repressive regimes, including a list of “recognized crimes” and allowing praise for mass killers in some contexts  —  Exclusive: users are allowed to praise mass killers and ‘violent non-state actors’ in certain situations
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
The controversies around Substack miss the point that it is just a tool for sovereign writers, who are in control as they are paid directly by subscribers  —  Manage your Stratechery subscription.  —  There has been a bit of controversy around Substack over the last week …
João Carrasqueira / Neowin:
Microsoft, Google, and others partner to improve browser compatibility, focusing on five areas, including CSS Flexbox, CSS Grid, and CSS sticky positioning  —  Google and Microsoft have announced that they're joining forces with other companies such as Igalia, as well as the “broader web community” …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Orca Security, which provides tools for protecting cloud-based assets, raises $210M Series C led by CapitalG and Redpoint Ventures at a $1.2B valuation  —  Orca Security, an Israeli cybersecurity startup that offers an agent-less security platform for protecting cloud-based assets …
Joe Light / Bloomberg:
Boston Fed officials and MIT researchers, who have been developing prototypes for a digital dollar platform, plan to unveil their research as soon as July  —  - Boston Fed, MIT researchers plan to unveil platform work soon  — Project could threaten banks, credit cards, cryptocurrencies
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft rebrands Xbox Live as Xbox network and says the change is to distinguish the online service from Xbox Live Gold membership  —  Xbox network is the future  —  Microsoft is rebranding Xbox Live to Xbox network.  Instances of the new branding started appearing in the Xbox dashboard recently …
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Biden announces his intent to nominate Lina Khan, a legal scholar and leading voice in the growing tech antitrust movement, to serve as an FTC commissioner  —  Khan brought Big Tech scrutiny mainstream  —  President Joe Biden has announced his intent to nominate Lina Khan …
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
Lattice, which helps companies track, reward, and set goals in the workplace, raises $60M led by Tiger Global at a $1B valuation, up from $450M last year  —  - Human resources tech startup raises $60 million in new funds  — CEO says it helps fix the dreaded employee performance review
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Niantic announces a new partnership with Nintendo to develop mobile games built on Niantic's AR tech, starting with a game based on Nintendo's Pikmin franchise  —  Niantic and Nintendo announced a new partnership  —  Niantic, developer of the smash hit Pokémon Go, has announced a new partnership with Nintendo.
Rand Fishkin / SparkToro:
SimilarWeb: in 2020, ~65% of Google searches ended without a click, up from ~50% in June 2019; mobile searches are far more likely to end without a click  —  In August of 2019, I published research from now-defunct clickstream data provider, Jumpshot, showing that 50.33% of all Google searches ended without …
Wall Street Journal:
Analysis of 3,100 sites shows that hospitals are using code to hide pages containing pricing data from being crawled by search engines, violating US federal law  —  Webpages for hundreds of hospitals require users to click through to find prices, undermining federal transparency rule, Journal analysis shows
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Dataminr, which analyzes public data in real-time, raises $475M at a post-money valuation of $4.1B, bringing its total raised to $1.05B+  —  Join Transform 2021 for the most important themes in enterprise AI & Data.  Learn more.  —  Dataminr, a New York-based company specializing in AI …
More: TechCrunch and FinSMEs
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch:
AR pioneer Blippar is back with $5M in pre-Series A funding and a B2B model focused on its Blippbuilder service; it has trimmed its headcount from 340 to 30  —  Augmented Reality pioneer Blippar - which has had a tortuous history after early investors pulled out and the company had to scramble …

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:05 PM ET, March 23, 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.

From Mediagazer

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Arkansas PBS severs ties with the PBS network, the first state public TV system to do so since Congress cut CPB funds, citing the annual $2M+ membership cost

Financial Times:
OpenAI hopes the Disney deal boosts Sora, which has high costs and limited traction; Sensor Tower: users average 13 minutes per day on Sora vs. 90 on TikTok

Sam Roberts / New York Times:
Arthur L. Carter, who started a Connecticut newspaper in 1981, bought and sold The Nation, and founded the New York Observer in 1987, has died at 93

More News

Bloomberg:
In 2020, 60% to 70% of 9-year-old YouTuber Ryan Kaji's $30M annual revenue came from merchandise licensing deals, passing YouTube ad revenue for the first time
R. Lawler / Engadget:
Google says it has fixed a WebView problem that caused Gmail, Google Play, and other apps to crash

Earlier Picks

Kim Lyons / The Verge:
Jack Dorsey's first tweet sold as an NFT for $2,915,835.47 on a service called Valuables; Dorsey says he sent all proceeds to GiveDirectly's Africa fund as BTC
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