Techmeme
May 26, 2021, 1:10 PM

Top News

Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon says it will acquire MGM Studios for $8.45B, its second-largest acquisition since it paid $13.7B for Whole Foods in 2017  —  - Amazon is buying MGM Studios, the companies announced, marking Amazon's most ambitious move yet into the entertainment business.
Peter Kafka / Vox:
With its MGM acquisition, Amazon doesn't want to compete with streamers like Netflix but reduce Prime subscriber churn by providing enough blockbuster content  —  Amazon isn't competing with Netflix, but it is spending billions trying to figure out Hollywood.  Maybe 007 can help.
Joseph Menn / Reuters:
WhatsApp has filed a lawsuit in Delhi against the Indian government for its new social media regulations, saying they would break privacy protections  —  WhatsApp has filed a lawsuit in Delhi against the Indian government seeking to block regulations coming into force on Wednesday that experts …
Stephen Shankland / CNET:
USB standards body unveils its USB-C 2.1 revision, which supports power up to 240W, up from 100W currently, aimed at devices like 4K displays and gaming laptops  —  An upgrade to the USB-C standard will accommodate levels of up to 240 watts, an improvement that could let you plug power-hungry devices …
Melanie Evans / Wall Street Journal:
Google partners with US hospital chain HCA Healthcare to develop algorithms to improve operating efficiency, monitor patients, and guide doctors' decisions  —  Tech giant expands health-sector presence in latest deal to develop tools to improve medical care, as privacy concerns arise
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Facebook and Instagram now give users options to hide Like counts across all posts and to hide their own public Like counts from others  —  Facebook this week will begin to publicly roll out the option to hide Likes on posts across both Facebook and Instagram, following earlier tests beginning in 2019.
Sam Machkovech / Ars Technica:
Sources say Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC that could launch by year's end  —  We can confirm some, but not all, of what's in store for the codenamed “SteamPal.”  —  Video game and hardware studio Valve has been secretly building a Switch-like portable PC …
New York Times:
An overview of Russia's increasingly aggressive attempts to control Google, Facebook, and Twitter, ordering them to store data in Russia and imposing fines  —  Its campaign is part of a global wave of actions by governments that are testing how far they can go to control online speech.
Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:
Facebook says Russia is still the largest producer of disinformation, in a report that details 150 operations that the company has disrupted since 2017  —  Report explores how issue has evolved in recent years  —  A Facebook report released Wednesday says that Russia is still the largest producer …
Sean O'Kane / The Verge:
Tesla says deliveries of Model 3 and Y vehicles in North America will no longer be equipped with radar for Autopilot and instead rely on a camera-based system  —  Autopilot will rely on cameras from here on out in the Model 3 and Model Y  —  Tesla has stopped building forward-facing radar sensors …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Instagram launches a new shopping section called Drops, helping users find limited supply products, and will temporarily waive fees due to COVID-19  —  Instagram today announced it's adding a new feature to help connect online shoppers to product drops through its app.
More: Adweek
Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times:
In a first, England's NHS says it will scrape medical histories of 55M patients, including info on mental and sexual health, to be shared with third-parties  —  55m patients have until June 23 to opt out of having their health data scraped into a new database
Fadeke Adegbuyi / Cybernaut - Every:
Gen Z students are studying together online across YouTube, TikTok, Discord, and Twitter, seeking inspiration, finding focus, and sharing academic anxieties  —  In late 2020, a 10-hour loop of a song from Mario Kart titled “Coconut Mall” started blowing up on Youtube.
South China Morning Post:
Xiaomi beats with Q1 profit of $1.2B, up 260.6% YoY, on revenue of $12B, up 54.7% YoY, and says it shipped 49.4M smartphones globally for a 14.1% market share  —  Smartphone giant Xiaomi's first-quarter profit beat market estimates to reach US$1.2 billion Revenue in the March quarter hit US$12 billion …
More: PingWest
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
SpotOn, a payments startup focused on SMBs, raises $125M Series D led by a16z, tripling its valuation from last September to $1.875B  —  Certain industries were hit harder by the COVID-19 pandemic than others, especially in its early days.  —  Small businesses, including retailers and restaurants …
Martin Tisne / MIT Technology Review:
Lawmakers focus on protecting individuals from big tech when they should develop laws focusing specifically on collective data rights to prevent harm to society  —  Protecting individual data is not enough when the harms are collective  —  Every person engaged with the networked world constantly creates rivers of data.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
DataDome, which helps secure e-commerce marketplaces against web scraping, account takeover, and payment fraud, raises $35M Series B led by Elephant  —  Elevate your enterprise data technology and strategy at Transform 2021.  —  Bot defense startup DataDome today announced that it raised $35 million …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Bangalore-based Koo, a microblogging service that allows users to post in English and Indian languages, raises $30M at over $100M valuation led by Tiger Global  —  Investors are backing Koo, an Indian alternative to Twitter, with large size checks at a time when tension is brewing between the American social network and New Delhi.
DFRLab:
Analysis of 40M pieces of QAnon content from 1/20 to 4/21: Facebook, Twitter, and others have successfully expelled most of the content after it peaked in 6/20  —  The conspiracy's followers on alternative platforms have failed to out-post their counterparts on mainstream ones

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Earlier Picks

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Jon Fingas / Engadget: