Techmeme
April 29, 2021, 9:20 PM

Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft says it will reduce its cut for PC games in Microsoft Store from 30% to 12% starting August 1, in a bid to compete with Steam  —  Microsoft puts the pressure on Valve's Steam store  —  Microsoft is shaking up the world of PC gaming today with a big cut to the amount of revenue it takes from games on Windows.
Amazon - Investor Relations:
Amazon reports Q1 revenue of $108.5B, up 44% YoY, net income of $8.1B, up from $2.5B YoY, and says AWS has become a $54B annual sales run rate business  —  SEATTLE—(BUSINESS WIRE) April 29, 2021—Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced financial results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2021.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple clarifies that the first-gen Magic Keyboard is “functionally compatible” with the new 12.9-inch iPad Pro but may not “precisely fit when closed”  —  In a new support document published today, Apple has clarified the situation around the Magic Keyboard's compatibility with the new 12.9-inch iPad Pro.
Marie Fazio / New York Times:
Zoë Roth, the girl from the “Disaster Girl” meme who is now a college senior studying peace, war, and defense, sells the meme as an NFT for ~$500,000  —  Zoë Roth, now a college senior in North Carolina, plans to use the proceeds from this month's NFT auction to pay off student loans and donate to charity.
Nandita Bose / Reuters:
US Labor Secretary says most gig workers should be classified as employees deserving of related benefits; shares of Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash are down sharply  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden's top labor official said most gig workers in the United States should be classified as …
Tonya Riley / Washington Post:
A task force of 60+ experts from industry, government, nonprofits, and academia calls on the US and allies to take steps to fight a surge in ransomware attacks  —  A task force of more than 60 experts from industry, government, nonprofits and academia is urging the U.S. government and global allies …
Arielle Pardes / Wired:
Founders and VCs are flocking to Miami for “Miami Tech Week”, an impromptu event kicked off by a tweet from Delian Asparouhov, a principal at Founders Fund  —  Founders and funders are flocking to the beach for an impromptu event that some are calling “South by Southeast.”
Liam Tung / ZDNet:
Facebook joins the Rust Foundation, the org driving Rust, following Amazon, Google, Huawei, Microsoft, and Mozilla, and details its use of Rust since 2016  —  Facebook is also ramping up internal developer support for Rust after targeting infrastructure written in C++.
Canalys.com:
Global smartphone shipments in Q1 reached 347M, up 27% YoY; Samsung took first place, shipping 76.5M for a 22% share, while Apple shipped 52.4M for a 15% share  —  Shanghai (China), Bengaluru (India), Singapore, Reading (UK) and Portland (US) - Thursday, 29 April 2021
Shira Ovide / New York Times:
Combined revenue of Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Facebook hit ~$1.2T this year, up 25% since March 2020, benefitting from a “perfect positive storm”  —  The dictionary doesn't have enough superlatives to describe what's happening to the five biggest technology companies …
The Markup:
Financial services use Facebook's ad targeting to block people in certain age groups from seeing their ads, violating Facebook's anti-discrimination policies  —  Such ads, along with other age-targeted financial product ads, may violate civil rights laws, attorneys say
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Instagram adds new features to let users mute their microphones and even turn their video off while using Instagram Live, as it seeks to compete with Clubhouse  —  In addition to Facebook's Clubhouse competitor built within Messenger Rooms and its experiments with a Clubhouse-like Q&A platform on the web …
Mark Bergen / Bloomberg:
Filing: during Q1, Alphabet saved $268M in expenses from company promotions, travel, and entertainment, compared to Q1 2020, “primarily as a result of COVID-19”  —  With Covid-19 restrictions lifting, more people are booking trips and hotels online, which is very good for Google's advertising business.

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI that works  —  Tribe builds tech for top AI companies.  Get in touch to learn how our bench of 500+ engineers and researchers can accelerate your roadmap.
Kulkan Security:
Hire Kulkan as your penetration testing partner  —  Kulkan prioritizes deep-dive manual security reviews, dissecting your software and infrastructure to find issues that once remediated can truly reduce security risk.
Zoho:
App Spotlight: ZPortals Web Portals for Zoho  —  Our App Spotlight brings you hand-picked apps to enhance the power of your Zoho apps and tools.  Visit Zoho Marketplace to explore all apps, integrations, and extensions.
Mastodon:
Donate to Mastodon  —  Mastodon gGmbH, the non-profit behind the open-source software powering the social web, relies entirely on support from users like you.  Donate directly with a credit card or through Patreon.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (#52)
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Mon. 04/15 - Onshoring And Halving
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:20 PM ET, April 29, 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

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
James Vincent / The Verge:
Sheila Dang / Reuters:

Earlier Picks

Natalia Drozdiak / Bloomberg:
Gilad Edelman / Wired:
Reuters:
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge: