Techmeme
February 16, 2021, 12:05 PM

Top News

The Economic Times:
Amazon partners with Foxconn to establish its first device manufacturing line in India, operational later this year, to make Fire TV sticks locally  —  Bengaluru: Amazon.com Inc. is setting up its first device manufacturing line in India to make Fire TV sticks locally.  The facility will become operational later this year.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft's unified Office mobile app, which combines Word, Excel, and PowerPoint into a single application, is now available on iPad  —  A tablet-friendly version is finally here  —  Microsoft has updated its unified Office mobile app to work on Apple's iPad devices.
David Meyer / Fortune:
TikTok has been hit with a volley of complaints from Europe's consumer protection watchdogs over “misleading” privacy practices and “ambiguous” terms  —  Our mission to make business better is fueled by readers like you.  To enjoy unlimited access to our journalism, subscribe today.
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Parler says it is now accessible for existing users and will accept new signups starting next week, announces Tea Party activist Mark Meckler as interim CEO  —  An Amazon suspension shut it down in January  —  The alternative social network Parler has reopened after a month offline.
Damien Wilde / 9to5Google:
UK filing: OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei's new venture Nothing has acquired Essential, Andy Rubin's now-defunct smartphone brand  —  After a series of launch teasers and little information on upcoming product lines, Carl Pei's flegling technology brand Nothing is now the sole owner of the one-time smartphone brand Essential.
David McCabe / New York Times:
Revelations from government investigations have paved the way for private antitrust lawsuits against Google and Facebook brought by publishers and advertisers  —  Government antitrust lawsuits have created openings for numerous private cases against Big Tech, with more expected to come.
Olivia Raimonde / Bloomberg:
Bitcoin briefly crossed the $50K mark today, up ~73% YTD, while Ethereum hit a record $1,785, up ~140% YTD  —  - Rival cryptocurrency Ether hit a record of its own on Friday  — Morgan Stanley is considering Bitcoin for investment fund  —  Bitcoin blew through another milestone …
BBC:
Investigation finds ten websites offering fake Amazon reviews from £5 each; five of the websites claimed to have 702K+ “product reviewers” on their books  —  Fake reviews for products sold on Amazon's Marketplace are being sold online “in bulk”, according to Which?
Meir Orbach / CTech:
Source: Palo Alto Networks acquires Israeli startup BridgeCrew, which develops and delivers security as code, for $200M  —  This is the seventh Israeli company purchased by the Silicon Valley cyber powerhouse  —  Israeli-founded cyber company Bridgecrew Technologies has been acquired by Palo Alto Networks …
Matthew Hutson / New Yorker:
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Clubhouse, which centralizes creation and consumption into a feedback loop, will do for audio what Twitter, Stories, and TikTok did for text, images, and video  —  To what extent are new companies, particularly those in new spaces, pushed versus pulled into existence?  Last week I wrote about how Tesla is a Meme Company:

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