Techmeme
May 18, 2022, 6:00 PM

Top News

Brian Stelter / CNN:
Bloomberg:
Edwin Chan / Bloomberg:
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Amazon refreshes its Fire 7 tablet with USB-C charging, better battery life, and a 30% faster processor, and raises the price from $50 to $60, coming June 29  —  And faster internals  —  Amazon is updating its small and inexpensive Fire 7 tablet for the first time in three years …
New York Times:
A profile of Do Kwon, the trash-talking founder of Terraform Labs, which raised $200M+ to build LUNA and UST; investors cashed out early, but traders lost big  —  Do Kwon, a South Korean entrepreneur, hyped the Luna and TerraUSD cryptocurrencies.  Their failures have devastated some traders …
Financial Times:
Filing: Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund bought a 5% stake in Nintendo worth $2.98B; the PIF disclosed 5%+ stakes in Nexon and Capcom in February 2022  —  Sovereign wealth fund has already bought into Japan's Capcom and Nexon  —  Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund has acquired …
Monica Chin / The Verge:
Acer refreshes the Swift 3 laptop, starting at $900 with a 14" OLED display, 12th Gen Intel Core H-series CPUs, and claimed 10-hour battery life, coming in July  —  A new 14-inch OLED for $899.99  —  It wasn't too long ago that the phrase “OLED laptop” implied a luxury product.
Sam Rutherford / Engadget:
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
In response to rivals' complaints, Microsoft begins relaxing its cloud licensing rules in Europe, which made running its software on other clouds more expensive  —  Microsoft is undoing in Europe some of the restrictive cloud-licensing policies it first announced in 2019 which made running …
Financial Times:
China's top economic official meets with dozens of tech execs and experts and pledges “support” for Chinese tech companies amid a deepening economic slump  —  Beijing's top economic official holds meetings with executives and industry experts  —  China's top economic official met dozens …
Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
NY AG will launch a probe into Twitch, Discord, 4chan, and 8chan, which officials say “may have been used to plan, promote, and stream” the Buffalo shooting  —  - New York Attorney General Letitia James will investigate social media companies in connection to the apparently …
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Following years of complaints, TikTok announces its first crediting tools, letting creators link back to the videos of other creators and trend originators  —  TikTok is finally going to let users of the short-form app properly give credit where credit is due.
Bloomberg:
Four Democratic senators ask the FTC to investigate whether ID.me illegally misled consumers and government agencies about its use of facial recognition tech  —  A group of Democratic senators has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether identity verification company ID …
Nellie Andreeva / Deadline:
Netflix cuts 150 jobs out of 11K across departments in a new round of layoffs, mostly in the US, as the company reins in costs amid slowing revenue growth  —  EXCLUSIVE: Layoffs are underway at Netflix today.  About 150 positions out of the streamer's workforce of 11,000 are being eliminated amid …
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
New York accuses Amazon of discriminating against pregnant workers and those with disabilities; the state seeks civil fines and an end to discriminatory conduct  —  - New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday announced a state agency has filed a complaint against Amazon, alleging it discriminates …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Ian Goodfellow, Apple's former director of machine learning who left over the company's strict return-to-office policy, is joining Alphabet's DeepMind  —  An Apple Inc. executive who left over the company's stringent return-to-office policy is joining Alphabet Inc.'s DeepMind unit …
Wall Street Journal:
Google's Russian subsidiary plans to file for bankruptcy, saying it cannot pay employees, suppliers, and vendors after authorities seized its local bank account  —  Departure of employees comes as Russian subsidiary prepares to declare bankruptcy, effectively ending the company's commercial operations in the country
Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg:
CoinGecko: after Tether briefly lost its dollar peg, leading to $8.5B+ in redemptions, Circle's USDC circulation rose by ~$3.4B and Binance USD gained $1.2B  —  Circle's USD Coin is reaping the benefits as circulation of Tether, the world's largest stablecoin and its closest rival, continues to decline in a wave of redemptions.
Tiffany Hsu / New York Times:
Celebrities face intensifying criticism for hyping crypto without highlighting the risks after this month's sell-off, as Crypto.com and FTX reduce ad spending  —  Crypto boosters such as Matt Damon, Reese Witherspoon and Gwyneth Paltrow have been criticized for hyping virtual currency without highlighting the risks.

Sponsor Posts

Okara:
Meet Okara, the AI platform that doesn't train on your data  —  Chat with 30+ open-source models (Llama, Kimi, Qwen, DeepSeek) through encrypted infrastructure.  Used by teams handling proprietary code and strategy.
Soxton:
AI-powered 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!
Zoho:
Zoho Office Integrator 2025: An overview of the features we added throughout the year  —  Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous new year!  When we stepped into 2025, our goal was to empower you to edit one of the most popular document formats: PDFs.
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

Big Technology Podcast:
Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis: AI's Next Breakthroughs, AGI Timeline, Google's AI Glasses Bet
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.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Vinod Khosla and Keith Rabois from Khosla Ventures
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Chuck Klosterman on Why Football Owns TV (and Why It Won't Forever)
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.
The Social Radars:
Christina Cacioppo, Founder & CEO, Vanta
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
Invest Like the Best:
Patrick O'Shaughnessy - Creating on Principle
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Special Edition: Key findings from the Microsoft AI Diffusion Report
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 6:00 PM ET, May 18, 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

Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
Tomio Geron / Protocol:

Earlier Picks

Bloomberg:
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Michael Potuck / 9to5Mac:
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch: