Techmeme
February 9, 2021, 9:10 AM

Top News

Sarah E. Needleman / Wall Street Journal:
Reddit raises $250M+ Series E led by Vy Capital at a $6B valuation, doubling in value since its last funding round in February 2019  —  Its WallStreetBets community played a prominent role in recent stock-trading frenzy  —  Reddit Inc. doubled its valuation to $6 billion in a new round …
Mishaal Rahman / XDA Developers:
Leaked images purportedly show mockups of Android 12, including major UI changes, a privacy indicator, conversation widget, new themes, and more  —  Google is set to release its next major version of Android — Android 12 — later this year, following a series of Developer Previews and Betas …
Jason Koebler / VICE:
Police say a computer in a water treatment plant in FL, set up for remote access, was breached; the intruder tried raising sodium hydroxide levels in the water  —  The hacker tried to drastically increase sodium hydroxide levels in the water, Pinellas County, Florida, officials said on Monday.
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Sources: Mark Cuban is co-founding Fireside, a podcast app where hosts can talk to fans live and monetize their conversations, with plans to launch this year  —  Fireside is launching this year  —  Mark Cuban is getting in on the audio and podcasting hype.
Financial Times:
EU lawmakers are considering regulations that would force Facebook and Google to pay for news content on their platforms, echoing a similar move in Australia  —  Move by MEPs would strengthen hand of publishers against Google and Facebook  —  EU lawmakers overseeing new digital regulation …
Liam Tung / ZDNet:
Programming language Rust is now backed by the Rust Foundation, a new independent organization that will make it easier to accept financing beyond Mozilla  —  The Rust programming language now has its own foundation that's independent from Mozilla.  —  Programming language Rust now has the backing …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
A developer is exposing scam lookalike apps that are flourishing on the App Store, fueled by lax enforcement and fake reviews, after his own app was targeted  —  Over the last several weeks, developer Kosta Eleftheriou has been highlighting many apparent scam applications on the App Store.
Taha Broach / The 8-Bit:
In the iOS 14.5 beta, Apple has finally added the ability to set a default music streaming service, including Spotify, when using Siri to play songs  —  Apple launched the initial beta versions of iOS 14.5 to developers and public beta testers last week.  Among the list of new features …
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Facebook expands policies to take down more posts with vaccine-related misinformation, including assertions that vaccines cause autism  —  Facebook said on Monday that it plans to remove posts with erroneous claims about vaccines from across its platform, including taking down assertions …
Bloomberg:
Industry executives warn of severe chip shortages to make phones and game consoles, amid excessive stockpiling of chips by companies like Huawei and Apple  —  - The dearth of supply is deepening as Apple, China hoard chips  — Worsening crunch could impact sectors well beyond automaking
Financial Times:
Researchers estimate that the NHS contact tracing app has prevented the transmissions of ~600K coronavirus infections in England and Wales  —  Study finds link in areas of England and Wales between high app usage and lower case numbers  —  The NHS contact-tracing app has prevented …
Foeke Postma / bellingcat:
Investigation reveals how Instagram influencers are enabling animal abuse for clicks by using services that promote Dubai's underground animal trade  —  The monkey squirms while a woman holds it up with one hand and records it without speaking.  The TikTok video is brief and has no description …
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
Documents show Binance dropped the defamation lawsuit against Forbes it filed in November 2020, but did not give a reason for the withdrawal  —  The exchange did not say in its latest filing why it withdrew the case, at least for now.  —  Binance Holdings, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange …
Steve Kovach / CNBC:
Filing: Tesla has bought $1.5B worth of bitcoin and says it will start accepting bitcoin as a payment method for its products in the future  —  - Tesla announced in an SEC filing Monday that it has bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin.  — The company also said it would start accepting bitcoin as a payment method for its products.

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Earlier Picks

Emily Birnbaum / Protocol:
Sarah E. Needleman / Wall Street Journal:
TechCrunch: