Techmeme
August 27, 2021, 12:20 AM

Top News

Apple:
Apple agrees to settle class-action lawsuit, will let developers directly contact customers, inform them about alternative purchase options outside iOS, more  —  CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA Apple today announced a number of changes coming to the App Store that, pending court approval, will resolve a class-action suit from US developers.
The Verge:
Apple's $100M settlement lets devs tell users about alt payment options using contact info from iOS app, but still won't allow adding the info inside the app  —  Developers can email you about payment options that bypass Apple's cut  —  A proposed agreement between Apple …
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
YouTube is implementing picture-in-picture functionality on its iOS app, starting with a testing window for Premium subscribers through October 31  —  YouTube is making good on its promise to  —  bring picture-in-picture viewing to iOS users.  TechCrunch
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple launches News Partner Program, which lowers commissions on in-app purchases to 15% for news publishers who participate in Apple News  —  Apple today is launching a new program that will allow subscription news organizations that participate in the Apple News app and meet certain requirements …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: TSMC plans to increase prices by ~10% for advanced chips and ~20% for less advanced chips, starting later this year or early next  —  TSMC to increase prices of most advanced chips by roughly 10%; less advanced chips will cost about 20% more  —  The world's largest contract chip maker …
Wall Street Journal:
Q&A with John Binns, a 21-year-old American living in Turkey, who claims responsibility for the recent T-Mobile hack and says its security is “awful”  —  A 21-year-old American said he used an unprotected router to access millions of customer records in the mobile carrier's latest breach
Joan E. Solsman / CNET:
Netflix is testing games in its Android app in Poland, starting with two existing Stranger Things games  —  Playing on Netflix's mobile app is new, but the games themselves — two pixelated Stranger Things games — have already been available off Netflix for years.
Joseph Menn / Reuters:
Microsoft warns thousands of cloud computing customers that a now-fixed Azure Cosmos vulnerability may have exposed databases, saw no evidence it was exploited  —  Microsoft (MSFT.O) on Thursday warned thousands of its cloud computing customers, including some of the world's largest companies …
Sujeong Lim / Counterpoint Research:
Apple Watch active user base crossed 100M globally in Q2, as the smartwatch market grew 27% YoY and the sub-$100 segment grew 547% YoY  —  - The market grew a healthy 27% YoY, thanks to strong demand for sub-$100 smartwatches.  — Samsung and Garmin posted remarkable YoY growth even as Apple maintained its lead.
Matthew Gault / VICE:
Reddit CEO responds after calls from users to purge the site of COVID-19 disinformation, saying “dissent is a part of Reddit and the foundation of democracy”  —  The CEO of Reddit has responded to calls from users to purge the site of disinformation, saying “dissent is a part of Reddit and the foundation of democracy.”
Ryan Weeks / The Block:
DJ 3LAU launches Royal, which lets users trade shares of song royalty rights as crypto tokens, with $16M in seed funding led by Founders Fund and Paradigm  —  Royal, a non-fungible token (NFT) investment platform focused on music, has announced a $16 million seed-stage fundraise.
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Snap updates Snapchat's Scan feature, turning it into a visual search engine that identifies many things in the real world, like clothes or dog breeds  —  Snapchat's camera has to date mostly been associated with sending disappearing messages and goofy AR effects, like a virtual dancing hot dog.
Joan E. Solsman / CNET:
YouTube says it has removed over 1M videos related to COVID misinformation since Feb. 2020 and removes 10M videos per quarter, most of which have <10 views  —  But the 1 million coronavirus-related takedowns since the start of the pandemic are difficult to put in context, because of YouTube's gigantic scale.
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
A history of Google's messaging apps and how a lack of any kind of top-down messaging leadership has led to a decade and a half of failed messaging platforms  —  Sixteen years after the launch of Google Talk, Google messaging is still a mess.  —  Google Talk, Google's first-ever instant messaging platform …
Wall Street Journal:
A look at El Salvador's adoption of bitcoin as a national currency on Sept. 7, by giving citizens $30 to sign up for its Chivo wallet, and potential issues  —  Impoverished nation is defying warnings against using volatile crypto asset as official currency alongside U.S. dollar
Reuters:
Sources: Berkshire Hathaway-backed Brazilian digital bank Nubank is seeking a valuation greater than $55.4B for its planned US IPO  —  Brazil's Nubank is seeking a valuation in its planned U.S. initial public offering that would push the eight-year-old fintech past the $55.4 billion value …
More: FinLedger
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Hopin, which develops software for hosting virtual events, has hired Amazon's former VP of Grocery Tech and Bezos “shadow” advisor Wei Gao to be COO  —  - Wei Gao, a former Amazon executive, is joining London-based online events start-up Hopin as its chief operating officer.

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI that works  —  Tribe builds tech for top AI companies.  Get in touch to learn how our bench of 500+ engineers and researchers can accelerate your roadmap.
Kulkan Security:
Hire Kulkan as your penetration testing partner  —  Kulkan prioritizes deep-dive manual security reviews, dissecting your software and infrastructure to find issues that once remediated can truly reduce security risk.
Zoho:
Environmental impact of remote support: Reducing carbon footprints in IT  —  Information technology is essential for powering core business processes and facilitating communication.
Mastodon:
Donate to Mastodon  —  Mastodon gGmbH, the non-profit behind the open-source software powering the social web, relies entirely on support from users like you.  Donate directly with a credit card or through Patreon.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Magatte Wade, Unlocking Prosperity in Africa (#53)
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 04/19 - All The News About Llama 3
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:20 AM ET, August 27, 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

Katherine Doherty / Bloomberg:
New York Times:

Earlier Picks

Alex Hern / The Guardian:
Lauren Feiner / CNBC: