Techmeme
August 5, 2021, 11:45 AM

Top News

Gilad Edelman / Wired:
Mozilla's analysis says Facebook's justifications for cutting off access to researchers running NYU's Ad Observatory project “simply do not hold water”  —  The company says privacy concerns forced it to block access for a team of academics.  Whose privacy, exactly?
Bloomberg:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
TikTok says it is testing TikTok Stories; source says Stories are available in a handful of markets outside the US  —  Twitter may have shut down its Stories features known as Fleets, but the Stories format will continue to invade other social platforms.  TikTok today confirmed it's piloting …
Sam Byford / The Verge:
Nintendo misses in Q1 with $1.09B operating profit, down 17.3% YoY, on $2.94B revenue, down 9.9% YoY, as Switch sales decline by 21.7% YoY to 4.45M units  —  It was not exactly a normal quarter this time in 2020  —  Nintendo has released its earnings for the April-June quarter …
Joseph Cox / VICE:
Scammers are abusing Instagram's protections against self-harm and impersonation to purposefully target and ban Instagram accounts, some charging $60 per ban  —  An underground industry is abusing Instagram's mechanisms for removing self-injury and impersonating content to censor and harass people.
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Google refreshes its Nest lineup, including its video doorbell and indoor-only camera, with a unified design language and lower prices  —  A whole new lineup of cameras for Nest smart homes  —  Google has announced a new line of home security cameras and a video doorbell under its Nest brand.
Michael McSweeney / The Block:
Senators Lummis, Wyden, Toomey propose amendment to infrastructure bill excluding crypto developers, miners, node operators, others from the “broker” definition  —  A trio of U.S. senators is proposing a legislative exclusion for crypto companies, including miners and software developers …
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
Ethereum's “London” hard fork has been activated, with changes to how transaction fees are calculated to decrease volatility, among other fixes  —  - Ethereum's “London” hard fork has just activated, and it's a major change.  — One of the changes alters the way transaction fees …
Robert McMillan / Wall Street Journal:
DHS unveils the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative to combat ransomware and cyberattacks, in partnership with Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and others  —  Creation of the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative follows high-profile cyberattacks on critical U.S. infrastructure
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple is reportedly considering using on-device hashing algorithms to match photos with known child abuse material, a potentially problematic practice  —  Apple is reportedly set to announce new photo identification features that will use hashing algorithms to match the content of photos …
Zoe Schiffer / The Verge:
Apple places female engineering program manager on administrative leave after she tweeted about sexism in the office  —  Ashley Gjøvik says the employee relations team implied she should stay off Slack pending an ongoing investigation  —  Apple has placed senior engineering program …
Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE:
Indian startup MindTickle, which offers tools to improve sales staff, raises $100M Series E led by SoftBank at a $1.2B valuation, bringing total raised to $281M  —  So-called sales readiness technology provider MindTickle Inc. is running with the unicorns today after landing a $100 million Series E round of funding.
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Qualcomm offers to buy Veoneer, which develops advanced driver-assistance systems for autonomous vehicles, for $4.6B, topping Magna's $3.8B bid from last month  —  - Veoneer would give Qualcomm lift in driver-assistance tech  — Magna unlikely to try to top Qualcomm bid, analysts say
Chris McGreal / The Guardian:
Report: 25 oil and gas organizations spent $9.5M+ on 25K+ Facebook ads in 2020, seen 431M+ times, potentially undermining Facebook's ban on oil and gas misinfo  —  Thinktank InfluenceMap accuses petroleum giants of gaming Facebook to promote oil and gas as part of climate-crisis solution

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Zoho:
What's new in Zoho Tables with Apple's latest OS updates  —  Your work shouldn't slow you down when you're on the move.With our latest updates for iOS 27, we're bringing more of Apple Intelligence …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Soxton:
Fast, affordable law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!

Featured Podcasts

Sources:
OpenAI's Dots lead on the future of ChatGPT
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Great Chat:
What does the tech industry owe San Francisco?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
David George from a16z
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Big Technology Podcast:
SAP CEO: AI Won't Kill Software, But It Will Change Your Job — With Christian Klein
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
David Ellison's Paramount-Warner Empire & The Fight That Comes Next
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Invest Like the Best:
Noah Shinn - Building Instinct: The Personal Agent
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:45 AM ET, August 5, 2021.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Jessica Bursztynsky / CNBC:
Takashi Mochizuki / Bloomberg:
Tom Warren / The Verge: