Techmeme
July 16, 2021, 1:50 PM

Top News

Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Automattic, owner of Tumblr, buys podcast app Pocket Casts from a public radio collective that includes NPR, which reportedly lost $800K on it last year  —  A new home for the popular podcast app  —  Pocket Casts has a new owner.  Automattic, which runs WordPress.com and recently purchased Tumblr …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Intel is exploring a deal to buy GlobalFoundries, valuing the company at about $30B; GlobalFoundries itself says it isn't aware of any talks  —  GlobalFoundries, owned by an investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government, has been planning an IPO  —  Intel Corp. is exploring a deal …
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Dorsey says Square is creating a new business line with the aim of helping devs build decentralized financial services products, primarily focused on Bitcoin  —  Square Inc. is creating a new business line to help developers build financial services products focused on Bitcoin …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Report: Apple tapped VP of technology Kevin Lynch to help lead its car project; Lynch had a major role in development of Watch and associated health features  —  As Apple continues its work on self-driving car technology, it is shifting one of its most well-known executives to the Project Titan team.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Paytm files for an IPO in India, looking to raise $2.2B  —  Digital payments giant Paytm, one of India's most valuable startups, plans to raise up to $2.2 billion in an initial public offering, it said in draft papers submitted to the country's market regulator on Friday.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Twitter rolls out auto-captions for voice tweets in 11 languages including English, Japanese, and Hindi, more than a year after launching voice tweets on iOS  —  Twitter was criticized for launching voice tweets without captions  —  Twitter is now rolling out captions for voice tweets, the company announced Thursday.
Liam J. Kelly / Decrypt:
Binance is halting operations for its stock tokens offering, which launched in April and let users buy and sell tokenized stocks of popular stocks like Tesla  —  Editor's note: This article has been updated to include an announcement from Hong Kong's financial regulator.
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Google Cloud VP Amr Awadallah leaves the company, after staff complain about his manifesto called We Are One that he posted online about his past antisemitism  —  - Google Cloud has abruptly parted with developer relations vice president Amr Awadallah, according to an internal email seen by CNBC.
Dave Gershgorn / The Verge:
The maker of a new documentary about Anthony Bourdain says he used AI to re-create Bourdain's voice and synthesized the audio of three quotes from the TV host  —  ‘We can have a documentary-ethics panel about it later’  —  In a new documentary, Roadrunner, about the life and tragic death …
Canalys:
Global smartphone shipments grew 12% YoY in Q2, with Xiaomi up 83% to take a 17% share and pushing past Apple to reach the second place for the first time ever  —  In Q2 2021, global smartphone shipments increased 12%, as vaccines rolled out around the world, and the new normal for economies and citizens started to take shape.
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
Microsoft and Citizen Lab say government hackers from several countries have used spyware from Israeli vendor Candiru that uses two 0-day exploits in Windows  —  Microsoft and Citizen Lab found a new kind of spyware made by the mysterious Israeli vendor Candiru, and targeting someone in Europe based on their political beliefs.
CNN:
Source: Biden officials meeting with Facebook about vaccine misinfo concluded Facebook is either not taking their concerns seriously, or is hiding something  —  Avlon reviews hundreds of years' worth of anti-vaccine arguments  —  (CNN)US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy warned Thursday health misinformation …
More: FortuneTweets: @donie, @donie, @donie, and @thomasbyrnetd
Ted Johnson / Deadline:
Jennifer Broxmeyer / About Facebook:
Facebook publishes its first quarterly Oversight Board update, noting it fully or partially implemented 14 of 18 board recommendations across 6 cases in Q1 2021  —  When we launched the Oversight Board, we committed to consider and transparently respond to all of the board's recommendations.

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Earlier Picks

Frank Bajak / Associated Press:
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
David Priest / CNET:
Bloomberg: