Techmeme
April 12, 2021, 4:30 PM

Top News

Microsoft:
Microsoft says it has acquired speech tech company Nuance for $19.7B in cash, a 23% premium on its Friday closing price, as it boosts its healthcare offerings  —  Acquisition will combine solutions and expertise to deliver new cloud and AI capabilities across healthcare and other industries
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is in early stages of developing a product that combines an Apple TV with a HomePod speaker and has a FaceTime camera and smart home functions  —  - Company also exploring Amazon-like speaker with iPad as screen  — Apple has trailed Amazon, Google in the connected home market
Julia Carrie Wong / The Guardian:
Sources detail how Facebook allowed state-backed political manipulation in small countries, prioritizing abuses considered PR risks in countries like the US  —  A Guardian investigation exposes the breadth of state-backed manipulation of the platform  —  Facebook has repeatedly allowed world leaders …
Ryan Smith / AnandTech:
Nvidia unveils Grace, a high-performance Arm-based server CPU for large-scale neural network workloads, expected to become available in Nvidia products in 2023  —  Kicking off another busy Spring GPU Technology Conference for NVIDIA, this morning the graphics and accelerator designer …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple faces supply constraints due to issues with MiniLED display production, but still plans to debut two iPad Pros later this month  —  - New iPads planned for introduction in latter half of April  — MiniLED display is key part of Apple's upgrade proposition
Leo Kelion / BBC:
Apple and Google block an update to NHS COVID-19 app that uploads logs of venue check-ins, citing API terms on collecting location data  —  An update to England and Wales's contact tracing app has been blocked for breaking the terms of an agreement made with Apple and Google.
Bloomberg:
Twitter says it plans to hire its first product and engineering teams in Africa, based in Ghana, calling the country a “champion of democracy”  —  Twitter Inc. is planning to hire its first product and engineering team in Africa, an effort to expand its workforce in emerging markets …
Pranob Mehrotra / XDA Developers:
Google is rolling out “Heads Up”, a Digital Wellbeing feature that tells users to raise their head when walking while on Pixel devices  —  In November last year, XDA's Mishaal Rahman spotted an upcoming feature, called Heads Up, in a teardown of the Digital Wellbeing app.
Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:
Biden administration announces the nominations of ex-NSA deputy director Chris Inglis as first national cyber director and Jen Easterly as CISA head  —  The Biden administration plans on Monday to name a former senior National Security Agency official as the first national cyber director …
Lulu Yilun Chen / Bloomberg:
Under intense pressure from China, Ant Group will become a financial holding company that is regulated more like a bank, among other changes  —  - Chinese regulators summoned Ant for meeting on April 12  — Ant to fold all financial operations into holding firm
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
MLB announces that venerable trading card company Topps will begin selling new NFT baseball cards via the WAX blockchain starting on April 20  —  The MLB has its answer to the NBA's Top Shot NFT clips  —  Major League Baseball has announced its latest move to cash in on the NFT craze …
Stephen Nellis / Reuters:
Following WH roundtable, Intel says it wants to help manufacture chips for car makers in the next 6-9 months to alleviate the US auto industry's chip shortage  —  (Reuters) - The chief executive of Intel Corp told Reuters on Monday the company is in talks to start producing chips for car makers …
More: TechCrunch and CNBC

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
What will the next generation of developers do when AI writes the code?  —  Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon are betting that the junior devs we train today will be the senior engineers of tomorrow.
Will Reed:
The best sales leaders aren't job hunting.  Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach.  —  Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.
Zoho:
UK tax compliance with Zoho Books  —  The evolving tax landscape in the UK has added an additional responsibility to business owners, accountants, and bookkeepers to ensure their choice of accounting software supports compliance …
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

Lenny's Podcast:
Inside the black box of AI: How AI models actually think | Emmanuel Ameisen (Anthropic)
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
Anthropic IPO Panic, A Spy At OpenAI?, The Great Food Slop Debate
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.
Great Chat:
What happened to tech's backbone?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
The Upstarts Podcast:
The $7B Startup Mapping Your Health In Just One Hour | Neko's Hjalmar Nilsonne
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Cheeky Pint:
The company building underwater drones for $50,000
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
BG2 Pod:
Jensen Huang | Does AI Revenue Justify Capex, '27 AI Bottlenecks, Singularity, Open vs Closed & more
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:30 PM ET, April 12, 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

Earlier Picks

Liam Tung / ZDNet:
David Heinemeier Hansson:
Ben Smith / New York Times: