Techmeme
May 29, 2021, 12:20 PM

Top News

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
In an email to podcasters, Apple says it is delaying the launch of its Podcasts Subscriptions and channels until June and plans improvements to its Podcasts app  —  Apple has announced in an email to podcasters today that it is delaying the launch of Apple Podcasts Subscriptions.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
WhatsApp reverses course and says it won't limit functionality for users who don't accept its new privacy policy  —  The new policy went into effect on May 15th  —  Earlier this month, Facebook-owned WhatsApp said that users would lose functionality over time if they didn't accept its new privacy policy by May 15th.
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Anthropic, a new startup from former GPT-3 researchers that aims to build large-scale, general AI systems, raises $124M Series A led by Skype's Jaan Tallinn  —  As AI has grown from a menagerie of research projects to include a handful of titanic, industry-powering models like GPT-3 …
New York Times:
Microsoft: hackers behind SolarWinds recently breached State Dept. aid agency to send emails with malicious code to 150 orgs, including NGOs critical of Putin  —  Microsoft reported that it had detected the intrusion and that the same hackers behind the earlier SolarWinds attack were responsible.
BuzzFeed News:
Venmo will now let users control the visibility of their friends list, following a report in which Biden's Venmo account and connections were easily found  —  Venmo, the mobile payments app owned by PayPal, is changing its privacy settings after a BuzzFeed News story uncovered President Joe Biden's account earlier this month.
Aislinn Keely / The Block:
SEC charges five people with promoting BitConnect, which it alleges was an unregistered digital securities offering that raised $2B+ from retail investors  —  The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a civil lawsuit against five people accused of promoting BitConnect, a now-defunct crypto Ponzi scheme.
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
How online criminals are turning to unlicensed crypto exchanges and over-the-counter crypto brokers to cash out profits and how crypto forensic firms track them  —  Criminals are locked in battle with Forensics firms tracking how Treasure Men, privacy wallets and gift cards are used to turn virtual hauls into hard cash
Frank Chaparro / The Block:
Circle, the company behind the US dollar-backed stablecoin USDC, raises $440M, sources say ahead of a potential SPAC deal targeting a valuation of $4B  —  Quick Take  — Circle has raised $440 million in a new funding round  — The firm — which is behind the fast-growing USDC stablecoin …

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More News

Carrie DeCell / Knight First Amendment Institute:
Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Liam Tung / ZDNet:
Michael Luciano / Mediaite:
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Matthew Gault / VICE: