Techmeme
June 23, 2021, 11:10 PM

Top News

Reuters:
John McAfee has died in a Spanish jail cell by suicide according to his lawyer, hours after news that he would be extradited to face federal charges in the US  —  Antivirus creator John McAfee, 75, was found dead in his prison cell in Barcelona after the Spanish high court had authorised …
Tim Higgins / Wall Street Journal:
In a new report, Apple says letting iOS users sideload apps would undermine privacy protections, complicate parental controls, and potentially expose user data  —  Company says allowing users to download software onto their iPhones without using the App Store jeopardizes protections
Bloomberg:
Two South African brothers who founded crypto investment firm Africrypt vanished with ~69,000 bitcoins, worth $3.6B+, after informing clients of an alleged hack  —  - Lawyers hired by investors piece together funds' disappearance  — Africrypt loss would rank among biggest-ever crypto heists
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Instagram says it will test mixing suggested posts throughout primary feeds, even above posts from people users follow, and adds new controls  —  A priority on algorithm-chosen content  —  Instagram says reception to its “suggested posts” feature has been so positive that it's launching a new test …
Lillian Rizzo / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Peacock had fewer than 10M paid subs as of May; Comcast is considering a deal with ViacomCBS or acquiring Roku as it seeks to become a streaming giant  —  CEO Brian Roberts is out to prove that having content and distribution under one roof can make his cable colossus a winner
Anna Kramer / Protocol:
Profile of Twitter's Machine Learning, Ethics, Transparency, and Accountability team, as Responsible ML becomes one of the company's top priorities in 2021  —  Machine learning engineer Ari Font was worried about the future of Twitter's algorithms.  It was mid-2020, and the leader …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
What to expect from Microsoft's “next generation” Windows event on Thursday: new Windows 11 UI, updated Windows Store, and a focus on productivity and gaming  —  Microsoft's “next generation” of Windows event is taking place later this week, on June 24th at 11AM ET.
Nathaniel Meyersohn / CNN:
Adobe: total US e-commerce sales during Prime Day exceeded $11B; Amazon says Prime Day was the biggest two-day sales period for 3rd party sellers in its history  —  New York (CNN Business)Shoppers aren't showing any signs of getting tired of Amazon Prime Day, even though some sellers …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Snackpass raises $70M Series B led by Craft Ventures at a $400M+ valuation as its social food ordering service surpasses 500k users across 13 college towns  —  While every food delivery company is trying to get an edge on its rivals with discount codes, faster service, and a turn into the realm …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
David Cox / Wired UK:
DeepMind partners with Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, after its AlphaFold AI had considerable success in finding new treatments for sleeping sickness  —  In 2020, DeepMind solved one of biology's biggest challenges.  Now it's working on using its AI to find drugs to target neglected diseases
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
International coalition of consumer groups, digital and civil rights organizations, and data protection experts call for ban on “surveillance-based advertising”  —  An international coalition of consumer protection, digital and civil rights organizations and data protection experts …
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Bird to add e-bikes to its fleet and will open up its app to local shared operators in select cities this year; Spin launches its first e-scooter built in-house  —  Bird, the original scooter company, is finally branching out into electric bike-share  —  Two of the top shared electric scooter companies …
Alex Hern / The Guardian:
Tim Berners-Lee defends his decision to auction an NFT representing the web's source code, comparing it to the sale of an autographed book or a speaking tour  —  Creator of the world wide web says digital asset is ‘totally aligned with the values of the web’
Tracy Qu / South China Morning Post:
Kuaishou now has 1B monthly active users globally, including users of its Kwai and Snack Video apps, joining rivals ByteDance and Tencent  —  China's No 2 short video-sharing app operator joins rival ByteDance and Tencent as internet platforms with 1 billion monthly active users Kuaishou's tally covers …
More: TechCrunch
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Morning Consult poll of 2,000 US voters: 53% at least somewhat support Congress' Big Tech antitrust bills; 44% rank tech regulation as their lowest priority  —  - A new poll commissioned by tech industry-funded group shows 53% of voters favor at least some tech regulation.
Politico:
Aaron Schaffer / Washington Post:
Breakdown of officials in Biden's administration who have worked at tech giants: Facebook leads with 11 officials, followed by Alphabet at 10 and Microsoft at 8  —  Technology and cybersecurity policy researcher  —  Dozens of top Biden administration officials have professional ties …
Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE:
Anjuna Security, whose Confidential Cloud isolates and encrypts workloads and data to protect against bad actors, raises $30M Series B led by Insight Partners  —  Enterprise enclaves startup Anjuna Security Inc. announced today it has raised $30 million to bring its Confidential Cloud Software Platform …
More: FinSMEs
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Stack Overflow launches Collectives, branded communities where companies can organize discussions around broad topics and interact directly with developers  —  Developer-focused Q&A platform Stack Overflow has launched a new product called Collectives, branded communities where companies …
David McLaughlin / Bloomberg:
Antitrust experts say the biggest obstacle to Lina Khan's agenda will be a conservative judiciary, which has made it difficult for regulators to win big cases  —  The fiercest foes of America's technology giants cheered when Lina Khan, a professor at Columbia Law School …

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