Techmeme
March 23, 2021, 2:50 PM

Top News

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:
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  —  But it doesn't run Wear OS  —  It's taken years, but OnePlus is finally getting in the smartwatch game with the newly announced OnePlus Watch, starting at $159.
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Facebook announces F8 Refresh on June 2, a single-day, virtual-only conference for developers without a Mark Zuckerberg keynote  —  After a few twists and turns and then ultimately cancelling its F8 developer conference last year over Covid-19 concerns, Facebook today announced a return …
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 …
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 …
Chip Cutter / Wall Street Journal:
Coaching and mental health startup BetterUp says Prince Harry has joined as chief impact officer  —  The Duke of Sussex is going to work for the unicorn employee coaching and mental health startup in his latest foray into business  —  No longer a working member of the royal family …
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
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
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 …
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 …
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
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
Customer data service ActionIQ, which helps companies offer personalized experiences, raises $100M Series C, bringing its total raised to $145M  —  ActionIQ, which helps companies use their customer data to deliver personalized experiences, is announcing that it has extended its Series C funding …

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