Techmeme
April 12, 2022, 2:35 AM

Top News

Kris Holt / Engadget:
Fitbit receives FDA clearance for passive heart rhythm monitoring to detect signs of atrial fibrillation (AFib) and will roll out the feature in the US soon  —  The Food and Drug Administration has given Fitbit the green light to monitor users' heart rhythms in the background.
The Verge:
Meta rolls out a test for some creators to sell virtual items and effects in Horizon Worlds, which will take a 25% cut of any sale after app store fees  —  Horizon Worlds will take a 25 percent cut of any sale after app store fees  —  Meta is testing new features to let creators …
Janko Roettgers / Protocol:
Netflix is rolling out a Double Thumbs Up ratings option, which will appear next to the thumbs up and down buttons, to let it refine content recommendations  —  For nearly five years, Netflix has had simple thumbs-up and thumbs-down icons to express viewing preferences and help its algorithms provide better recommendations.
Brad Stone / Bloomberg:
Marc Andreessen has tweeted ~350 times in the past two weeks, often referring to “the current thing” meme, joined by Elon Musk and others  —  Three of America's top technologists are talking and tweeting with unusual fervor.  But first...  - Beijing is targeting tech companies' algorithms
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
Over 14,000 Etsy sellers start a week-long strike over an increase in transaction fees from 5% to 6.5%, grievances with Etsy's Offsite Ads program, and more  —  If you're in the market for funky trinkets and unique, handmade clothing, you might want to put off your shopping until next week.
Omar Abdel-Baqui / Wall Street Journal:
Elon Musk appears to have deleted some tweets critical of Twitter and its leadership; Musk liked a tweet saying he was “told to play nice and not speak freely”  —  Elon Musk appears to have deleted some tweets taking aim at Twitter Inc. amid his decision not to join the social-media company's board of directors.
Axios:
New York Times:
In the absence of federal crypto regulations in the US, lobbyists and executives are helping to draft and pass favorable bills at state level  —  In the absence of federal regulations, crypto lobbyists and executives are going state by state to get favorable rules enacted.  Many lawmakers have been willing partners.
Reuters:
Epic Games, which makes Fortnite, raises $2B from Sony and KIRKBI, the holding company behind LEGO, at a $31.5B post-money valuation  —  Epic Games said on Monday it had raised $2 billion from Sony Group Corp (6758.T) and the family owned holding company behind the Lego Group, giving the “Fortnite” maker a valuation of $31.5 billion.
Wall Street Journal:
Okta, IBM, and other companies are increasingly setting aside college degree requirements for US job applicants, opening up tech jobs to a range of new talent  —  The pandemic has helped catapult Americans in low-paying roles into more upwardly mobile careers
Coco Feng / South China Morning Post:
Sources: Meituan plans to lay off ~10%-20% of staff from its core business units after announcing that it added a net 17K jobs from July 2021 to mid-March 2022  —  Up to 20 per cent of Meituan's staff in core business units, including food and grocery deliveries have been affected The lay-offs come …
Teddy Amenabar / Washington Post:
Educators say esports infrastructure company PlayVS is misrepresenting itself as the exclusive provider of interscholastic high school esports for some games  —  For the past three years, the Washington State Scholastic Esports Association has been coordinating video game competitions for teams at different schools across the state.
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Voyager Innovations, owner of popular Filipino financial app PayMaya and neobank Maya Bank, raises $210M led by SIG Venture Capital at a $1.4B valuation  —  Voyager Innovations, the owner of Philippines' payment and financial services app PayMaya and neobank Maya Bank, announced today …

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
Copilot to autopilot: Why no single safeguard is enough  —  Microsoft designed a layered model that lets an AI agent resolve network incidents on its own within defined boundaries.
Will Reed:
The best sales leaders aren't job hunting.  Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach.  —  Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.
Zoho:
Zoho Backstage 4.0: Introducing the most powerful event experience platform from Zoho, ever  —  Every year, we observe Event Organizers Day on October 23 to celebrate the hard work and creativity event planners bring to every event.
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

Machine Gods:
Fired OpenAI Safety Researchers Speak Out + We Look Inside Pandora's Box
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
Subscribe to Machine Gods.
The Upstarts Podcast:
The Parking Startup That Swallowed A 100-Year-Old Giant | Metropolis CEO Alex Israel
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.
Great Chat:
AI's Spooky Season
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.
Sources:
Sundar Pichai on Gemini 4 and the AI compute crunch
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Netflix in Turmoil + Derek Thompson on AI & The Antisocial Century
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
Google CEO Sundar Pichai: AI's Infinite Possibilities, Compute Scarcity Dilemmas, Future AI Products
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:35 AM ET, April 12, 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

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Earlier Picks

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Reuters: