Techmeme
June 22, 2021, 1:05 PM

Top News

Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:
European Commission says it has opened an antitrust investigation into whether Google favors its own display ad tech over rivals  —  Brussels to examine whether US group broke rules by giving an advantage to its own services  —  The EU has announced a formal investigation …
Ian Hamilton / UploadVR:
After agreeing to be Facebook's first VR ad test partner, Resolution Games says it won't move forward with the test in its paid VR game Blaston  —  Resolution Games won't be moving forward with a Facebook advertising test in its paid VR game Blaston.  —  The studio may still consider testing ads in its free fishing game Bait!
Noah Smith / Noahpinion:
Q&A with Marc Andreessen on his “It's Time to Build” essay, techno-optimism, Clubhouse and Substack's potential, “Augmented Intelligence”, crypto, and more  —  Marc Andreessen should need no introduction, but I'll do one anyway.  He helped code the first widely …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
London's mayor says the Underground will have mobile coverage by the end of 2024 across the entire network, with some popular stations by the end of 2022  —  Popular stations like Oxford Circus, Euston, and Bank will connected by end of 2022  —  By the end of 2024, passengers …
Omkar Godbole / CoinDesk:
Bitcoin falls to around $30,000, its lowest level since January 28 after a $64,000 peak in mid-April, as China continues to crackdown on mining  —  The decline brings the year-to-date gain down to just 3%, according to CoinDesk 20 data.  —  Bitcoin dipped below the long-held support at $30,000 on Tuesday …
Global Times:
Kait Bolongaro / Bloomberg:
Canadian lawmakers pass a controversial bill that would subject tech giants to the same requirements as traditional broadcasters; bill now heads to the Senate  —  - Move would prioritize Canadian content, echoing broadcast law  — But critics say it threatens free speech on user-driven sites
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Boston-based Transmit Security, which is building a biometric-based authenticator, raises $543M Series A at a $2.2B pre-money valuation  —  Transmit Security, a Boston-based startup that's on a mission to rid the world of passwords, has raised a massive $543 million in Series A funding.
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A with Patreon CEO Jack Conte on its relationship with Apple and exception from App Store's 30% cut, supporting creators across platforms, and more  —  Today's guest on Decoder is Jack Conte, the co-founder and CEO of Patreon, a platform that allows people to pay their favorite creators directly …
Tim Hardwick / MacRumors:
UK government says it will test its new national Emergency Alerts system, starting with Android devices today before a smaller, regional iPhone test next week  —  The U.K. government on Tuesday will perform its first national test of a new Emergency Alerts system, but only Android users …
Vicky McKeever / CNBC:
Dating app Bumble says it's giving all ~700 employees a “paid, fully offline one-week vacation” in June, recognizing the challenges endured during the pandemic  —  Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd has given the dating app's 700 employees this week off as paid vacation in an effort to help with burnout.
Brent Kendall / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: the FTC will review Amazon's proposed acquisition of MGM, just as the commission gets a new chairwoman who has been critical of Amazon's expansion  —  Commission secures antitrust review after talks with Justice Department; scrutiny comes as Amazon critic Lina Khan takes helm of FTC
More: Slashdot
Nicole Lee / Engadget:
TikTok launches TikTok Jump to let creators enhance their videos by adding mini-app integrations from select partners including Whisk, Wikipedia, Quizlet, more  —  TikTok creators may no longer need to add a “link in bio,” at least to certain kinds of content.  Today,
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Oyster, which develops HR software for a distributed workforce, raises $50M Series B led by Stripes at a $475M valuation, up 6x from its previous valuation  —  The future of work is long on long-distance, and today a startup that's built a platform to help organizations hire global talent …
Jeremy Laird / PC Gamer:
A look at AMD's new FidelityFX Super Resolution, which aims to upscale games to higher resolution and competes with Nvidia's DLSS technology  —  ...just maybe not in the way you might have thought.  —  AMD's long awaited answer to Nvidia's game-prettifying DLSS technology is here.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Merlyn Mind, which is building software and hardware teaching aids for K-12, exits stealth with $29M led by Learn Capital  —  We've chronicled, in great detail, the many layers of technology, services and solutions, that have been wrapped around the world of education in recent years …
Katharine Schwab / Fast Company:
Survey of 37 tech giants: $3.8B committed to diversity efforts in 2020 and 2021, ~2/3 had made some kind of DEI policy change after the summer 2020 protests  —  One year after protests against police brutality shook much of the corporate world awake to the problems of racial equity in the workplace …

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Earlier Picks

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Katherine Anne Long / The Seattle Times:
Richard Pallot / ITV: