Techmeme
April 6, 2022, 8:45 PM

Top News

Jillian Ward / Bloomberg:
Elon Musk refiles his Twitter stake's SEC disclosure to classify himself as an active investor; Musk bought his 9.1% stake in cash from January 31 to April 1  —  Elon Musk refiled the disclosure of his stake in Twitter Inc. to classify himself as an active investor, making the change …
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal may struggle to balance his own vision against that of Elon Musk, an unpredictable board member with a much louder megaphone  —  Task #1: undermine CEO, consolidate power  —  Today, let's talk about what Elon Musk means for the future of Twitter.
Wall Street Journal:
Google Play removes dozens of Android apps, including Muslim prayer apps with 10M+ downloads, after researchers find malware tied to a US defense contractor  —  Code placed in consumer-facing apps is tied to U.S. national-security contractors, documents show
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
OpenAI releases DALL-E 2, a higher-resolution and lower-latency version of its text-to-image generation program with new capabilities, to researchers in preview  —  Researchers can sign up to preview it  —  Artificial intelligence research group OpenAI has created a new version of DALL-E, its text-to-image generation program.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
In a court-authorized March operation, the FBI cut off the servers of the Cyclops Blink botnet, tied to Russia's Sandworm, from Asus and WatchGuard routers  —  The Federal Bureau of Investigation has disclosed it carried out an operation in March to target a massive botnet controlled by Russian intelligence.
Vishal Chawla / The Block:
Sky Mavis, which runs Axie Infinity, raises $150M led by Binance, with participation from Animoca, a16z, and others, to reimburse users after the Ronin hack  —  Sky Mavis, the creator of play-to-earn game Axie Infinity, has raised $150 million to reimburse its users who lost funds during …
David Uberti / Wall Street Journal:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Meta won't hold its F8 developer conference in 2022, instead holding Conversations, a “business messaging event” on May 19, and an AR/VR event “later this year”  —  Meta is pausing the event in 2022  —  Meta won't be holding its F8 developer conference in 2022, the company announced Wednesday.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Nord Security, the Lithuania-based startup behind NordVPN, raises $100M, its first ever funding, at a $1.6B valuation led by Novator Ventures  —  VPN usage has surged in the last several years, with growing concerns over data privacy and security — and sometimes completely different motivations …
Kevin Marks:
Twitter quietly changed how embeds of deleted tweets work, showing blank embeds on websites; Twitter: the change is “to better respect” when users delete tweets  —  Twitter Edits You 2022-04-06 With all the fuss about Twitter's promised edit button, and how they might design it …
Samantha Cole / VICE:
Analysis: 50 out of 150 US police reports mentioning Apple's AirTags were of women describing stalking, 25 of which suspected ex-partners, husbands, or bosses  —  Motherboard obtained reports of stalking, harassment, and abuse using Airtags, targeting victims of intimate partner violence.
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Amazon will increase its Music Unlimited plan on Prime from $7.99/month to $8.99/month and its Single Device plan from $3.99/month to $4.99/month on May 5  —  Amazon is increasing the price of its Unlimited Music subscription for Prime members, the company announced on its website.
Jonathan Greig / The Record:
The US DOJ charges Russian national Dmitry Olegovich Pavlov for helping operate and administer the Hydra Market darknet, after German police shut down the site  —  The US Justice Department on Tuesday filed charges against Dmitry Olegovich Pavlov, a 30-year-old Russian national accused …
Dara Kerr / The Markup:
A report finds over 50 US gig workers were murdered while working since 2017; the families say Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and others offer little support  —  New report lists Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and Grubhub worker victims, and the tally is likely even higher
BuzzFeed News:
An investigation reveals that Worldcoin, which exchanges iris scans for free crypto, is grappling with issues, from angry field operators to privacy concerns  —  As Kudzanayi strolled through the mall with friends, a small crowd caught his attention.  At its center, three men held …
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Binance.US, the exchange's American affiliate, raises a $200M+ seed at a $4.5B pre-money valuation from RRE Ventures, Foundation Capital, VanEck, and others  —  Quick Take  — Binance.US has closed its first funding round, raising more than $200 million at a $4.5 billion pre-money valuation.
Washington Post:
Apple restores the “Smart Voting” app run by Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's supporters in Russia; Apple removed the app after the Kremlin threatened its execs  —  Apple has resumed allowing Russians to download an app run by supporters of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Pinterest announces a comprehensive policy to ban ads and posts featuring climate change misinformation or disinformation, a first for a major online platform  —  Pinterest announced today it's becoming the first major digital platform to introduce a comprehensive misinformation policy designed …
Crystal Kim / Bloomberg:
MicroStrategy borrows $205M against its bitcoin holdings to buy $190.5M more bitcoin, a first for the company; MicroStrategy now owns 129,218 BTC, worth ~$6B  —  MicroStrategy Inc. used a loan against its Bitcoin holdings for the first time to purchase $190.5 million more of the cryptocurrency.

Sponsor Posts

ElevenLabs:
ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs  —  You know us for voice.  Now meet ElevenAgents — featuring Expressive Mode, our most human-sounding AI voice technology in 70+ languages with ultra-low latency.  Hear it for yourself.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform  —  Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN.  That's the power of Intel Inside®
Zoho:
Build vs Buy Embedded Analytics: The Decision That Defines Your Product Roadmap  —  Every SaaS product team eventually hits the analytics wall.  Your customers want insights inside your app.  Your roadmap has no room to spare.
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

Lenny's Podcast:
An AI state of the union: We've passed the inflection point, dark factories are coming, and automation timelines | Simon Willison
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.
Access:
The future of AI might be on your finger
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Axiom's Carina Hong: Solving Math's Hardest Problems With AI, And AI's Problems With Math
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
Iran, Oil, and the US
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'Apple at 50', With John Siracusa
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ryan Roslansky: Turning AI Anxiety into Skills for the Future of Work
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 8:45 PM ET, April 6, 2022.

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

Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
Washington Post: