Techmeme
February 17, 2021, 7:50 PM

Top News

William Easton / About Facebook:
Ahead of proposed media law, Facebook says it's banning Australians from sharing/viewing news and all users from sharing from and viewing Australian news Pages  —  In response to Australia's proposed new Media Bargaining law, Facebook will restrict publishers and people in Australia from sharing …
News Corp:
News Corp announces a multi-year, global partnership with Google to provide content from its news sites “in return for significant payments by Google”  —  Long-term Deal Involves Payment For Premium Content For Google News Showcase;  —  Will Yield Substantial Benefits For Journalism And Society
ABC:
Australian authorities in public health, weather, and other areas say Facebook has removed posts from their feeds following Facebook's news ban  —  Facebook has restricted access to news in Australia, and so far the tech giant seems to have taken a pretty broad definition of news.
Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:
DOJ announces charges against three North Korean hackers for conspiring to steal and extort over $1.3B in cash and cryptocurrencies from banks and businesses  —  The Justice Department on Wednesday unsealed charges against three North Korean hacker spies accused of conspiring to steal …
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
Researcher finds one of the first examples of malware written to run natively on Apple's M1 chips; the GoSearch22 adware installs itself as a Safari extension  —  A security researcher found one of the first examples of malware written to run natively on Apple's M1 processors.  —  Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
YouTube says it will expand Shorts, its TikTok rival in beta, to the US soon, add 4K and DVR to YouTube TV, expand in-video shopping, and more in 2021  —  YouTube has a host of big product updates coming this year, and it just detailed a lot of them in a blog post from Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan.
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Google Maps now lets users pay for public transportation and parking by integrating Passport and ParkMobile services into its app, available in 400+ US cities  —  Fill your meter or get a train ticket  —  Google Maps is adding a couple of new useful features: the ability to pay for parking or buy a train ticket right from the app.
Todd Haselton / CNBC:
Amazon announces Build It, a Kickstarter-like program that lets customers vote on products and says it will build those that get enough support within 30 days  —  - A new program from Amazon called Build It lets customers choose to back a new product, and if it gets enough support within 30 days, Amazon will build it.
Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:
Epic Games files a formal antitrust complaint against Apple with the European Commission, claiming that Apple imposes commercially unviable burdens on rivals  —  Filing is latest shot in escalating feud between ‘Fortnite’ developer and Silicon Valley giant  —  Epic Games has filed …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google launches over 50 new features for its education products, including Classroom, Meet, and Workspace, with a focus on meeting educators' and admins' needs  —  Google today introduced a suite of updates for its online education tools whose adoption and further development have been accelerated …
Aditya Kalra / Reuters:
Internal docs: Amazon India has secretly favored big sellers, misrepresented its ties with them, and used them to circumvent tough foreign investment rules  —  NEW DELHI (Reuters) - It was early 2019, and senior Amazon.com Inc executive Jay Carney was preparing for an important meeting.
Daisuke Wakabayashi / New York Times:
Profile of Corey Quinn, a “cloud economist” who consults for AWS clients like WaPo and Epic on cloud computing costs and often lampoons Amazon on Twitter  —  Corey Quinn has made it his business to understand Amazon's cloud-computing charges and have some fun at the company's expense.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Waymo says it has begun testing its autonomous robotaxi service with employee volunteers in San Francisco, its first expansion beyond the Phoenix metro area  —  Waymo today announced that it has begun limited rider testing with employee volunteers in San Francisco to gather feedback and improve its robo-taxi technology.
Babu Mohan / Android Central:
Twitter starts testing voice DMs, which can be up to 140 seconds long, on iOS in India, Brazil, and Japan  —  Twitter is giving its users “more options to express themselves” in conversations.  —  What you need to know  — Twitter is testing a voice messaging feature for direct messages.
Bloomberg:
Biden admin says SolarWinds attack was executed from within the US, though Russia was responsible, and nine federal agencies and ~100 companies were compromised  —  A sprawling cyber-attack that compromised popular software created by Texas-based SolarWinds Corp. was executed from within the U.S. …
Emil Protalinski / GeekWire:
IDC: Chrome OS market share passed macOS for the first time in 2020, up 4.4 points YoY to 10.8%; Windows fell 4.9 points to 80.5%, macOS rose 0.8 points to 7.5%  —  New numbers show 2020 was the first year that Chromebooks outsold Macs, posting impressive market share gains at the expense of Windows.
Josh Eidelson / Bloomberg:
How the success of California's Prop 22, driven by gig economy companies, is affecting negotiations between unions and businesses across the US  —  The tower of aging Manila envelopes, stacked in a corner of Rome Aloise's cluttered Bay Area home office, is a monument to five years of failure.
Karen Weise / New York Times:
NY AG sues Amazon, alleging it inadequately protected workers from COVID-19 in Staten Island and Queens, and retaliated against employees who raised concerns  —  The case focuses on two of the company's facilities in New York.  —  New York's attorney general, Letitia James …
Phil Muncaster / Infosecurity Magazine:
YouTube has taken down nearly 3,000 channels and accounts in Q1 that were part of Chinese state coordinated influence operation  —  UK / EMEA News Reporter , Infosecurity Magazine  —  YouTube has taken down almost 3000 channels and accounts deemed to part of separate Chinese and Russian state coordinated influence operations.
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Standard Cognition, which is developing tools for cashierless stores, similar to Amazon Go, raises $150M at a $1B+ valuation  —  A startup selling Amazon Go-like checkout technology to retailers has raised money from investors at a $1 billion valuation, minting a new unicorn a year into a pandemic …
Tweets: @ycombinatorThanks:@plantrocks

Sponsor Posts

Clay:
Turn any GTM idea into reality  —  Clay helps GTM teams combine AI agents, enrichment, and intent data to move faster and turn insights into action.
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:
Your website, your brand: A website building guide for tech partners  —  In a competitive market, trust is what makes businesses choose you and stay with you.  As a tech partner, you can take steps to build …
IDrive:
Geometric Grand Unification — Solving the Hubble Tension & Proton Mass  —  Physics solved?  AI verifies model unifying gravity & particles by deriving constants from vacuum geometry.  Identifies void-driven topology.

Featured Podcasts

Grit:
The Truth Behind Automation Claims in Customer Support | Cresta CEO Ping Wu
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
Getting paid to vibe code: Inside the new AI-era job | Lazar Jovanovic (Professional Vibe Coder)
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
Software In Shambles, OpenAI vs. Anthropic Super Brawl, Amazon's Struggles
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.
Hard Fork:
Elon Musk's Mega-Merger + We Test Google's Project Genie + What's Next for Moltbook Creator
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Jeff Bezos Used To Be In Love with The Washington Post. What Happened?
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.
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 7:50 PM ET, February 17, 2021.

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

Jeremy Burge / Emojipedia: