Techmeme
September 14, 2021, 1:15 PM

Top News

Apple:
Livestream of Apple's “California Dreaming” event  —  Watch today at 10 a.m. PDT.  View online at apple.com or on the Apple TV app.
The Verge:
Live blog of Apple's event, where the iPhone 13, Apple Watch Series 7, and redesigned AirPods are expected  —  On such a winter's day  —  The time has come for yet another iPhone announcement — plus whatever else Apple might have up its sleeve.  Sleeve's the right metaphor, actually …
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Wall Street Journal:
Internal docs: Facebook's own research shows Instagram is harmful to a sizeable percentage of users, especially teen girls, but it has taken few remedial steps  —  Its own in-depth research shows a significant teen mental-health issue that Facebook plays down in public
Bloomberg:
Last week's court ruling leaves the door open for Apple to still attempt to collect a 30% commission from app developers who use their own payment methods  —  - Judge questioned, but didn't lower iPhone maker's commission  — Maximizing revenue poses logistical challenges, political risk
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
A breakdown of Apple vs. Epic decision, which was a near total victory for Apple, and the limitations of the injunction on App Store's anti-steering provision  —  The vast majority of Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers decision in Epic v. Apple is both straight-forward and predictable …
Sohee Kim / Bloomberg:
South Korea fines Google $177M for abusing market dominance, saying it prevented companies like Samsung from developing or using modified versions of Android  —  - Company said to have impeded development of competing software  — Regulator orders change to Google contracts with manufacturers
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Citizen Lab says it found evidence of ForcedEntry on an activist's iPhone and the exploit worked on iPads, Macs, and Watches as well, prior to recent updates  —  Citizen Lab says the ForcedEntry flaw affects all iPhones, iPads, Macs and Watches  —  Apple has released security updates …
Sun Yu / Financial Times:
Chinese police are using a state-backed anti-fraud app, installed on 200M+ devices, to identify and question people who have viewed overseas financial news  —  Police identify and question people on back of software meant to prevent online scams  —  Chinese police are using …
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Biden to nominate Georgetown law professor Alvaro Bedoya, who focuses on privacy issues, to be a commissioner at the FTC  —  Alvaro Bedoya has spearheaded pivotal research into how the government's use of facial recognition software hurts America's most marginalized
Karen Hao / MIT Technology Review:
Researcher discovers an AI-powered service that makes it incredibly easy for users to generate nonconsensual deepfake porn by uploading a picture of a face  —  Deepfake researchers have long feared the day this would arrive.  —  The website is eye-catching for its simplicity.
Jack Poulson / American Prospect:
A former AI research scientist at Google details how tech companies and the US government hide their surveillance projects in plain sight  —  Learning about the Pentagon's drone program through FOIA requests and public filings  —  An MQ-9 Sea Guardian unmanned maritime surveillance drone flies …
Samantha Subin / CNBC:
Intuit says it has agreed to acquire Mailchimp for $12B in cash and stock  —  - Intuit will buy email marketing company Mailchimp for $12 billion, the companies announced Monday.  — Intuit said it will use the acquisition to accelerate growth among small business clients.
Jeffrey Dastin / Reuters:
Amazon says it is increasing its average US hourly starting wage to $18 and plans to hire 125,000 more warehouse and transportation workers  —  Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) has increased its average starting wage in the United States to more than $18 an hour and plans to hire another 125,000 warehouse …
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
Nextiva, a communications software company similar to RingCentral and Vonage, raises $200M from Goldman Sachs at a $2.7B valuation, its first outside funding  —  - First outside funding round for Arizona-based software startup  — Nextiva clients include Taco Bell and the Buffalo Bills

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.
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
Simplifying benefits management in Zoho People  —  Let's consider a new hire on their first day of orientation.  They receive a brief introduction to the benefits plans, and almost immediately, questions start to surface …
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.

Featured Podcasts

Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Sam Blond from Monaco
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Training Data:
Anthropic's Katelyn Lesse & Angela Jiang: Building an Ecosystem, not a Walled Garden
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Invest Like the Best:
John Kim - How to Raise a Few Billion Dollars
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Grit:
The Sales Framework Every Founder Needs | Mark Roberge
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
How tech workers actually feel about AI in 2026 | Annual AI sentiment survey (Noam Segal)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:15 PM ET, September 14, 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

Earlier Picks

Kim Lyons / The Verge: