Techmeme
February 19, 2021, 4:50 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is working on a magnetically attached battery pack for iPhone 12 that would wirelessly charge the handset  —  - Accessory has faced development issues related to software  — Wireless charging unit may be popular with frequent users  —  Apple Inc. is working …
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
UK Supreme Court rules that Uber drivers should be classified as workers not independent contractors, concluding an almost five-year legal battle  —  - The U.K.'s Supreme Court upheld a ruling that Uber's drivers should be classified as workers rather than independent contractors.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is in talks with suppliers for next-gen lidar sensors for self-driving cars, that will be considered cutting edge four to five years from now  —  - Vetting of laser sensor vendors is developmental milestone  — iPhone maker has several years of work ahead on autonomous car
Wolfie Zhao / The Block:
Bitcoin's market capitalization passes $1T as its price surges above $56K  —  Bitcoin's market capitalization has crossed the $1 trillion milestone for the first time after over a decade's development as it gains increasing mainstream attention.  —  Bitcoin's price set new record highs …
Amir Efrati / The Information:
Sources: LinkedIn is developing a new service called Marketplaces to let its 740M users find and book freelancers, with plans to launch as soon as September  —  LinkedIn is developing a new service called Marketplaces to let its 740 million users find and book freelancers …
Rich Stanton / PC Gamer:
Court filings: Apple is asking Valve to provide extensive sales data for about 600 games on Steam, as part of Epic lawsuit; Valve has rejected the demand  —  These lawyers are getting steamed up.  —  A new court filing has revealed that, as part of the ongoing legal battle between Apple and Epic Games …
Jason Scott / Bloomberg:
Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says he will hold talks with Zuckerberg to “see if there's a pathway forward”, but says news legislation will go ahead  —  - ‘The world is watching us very closely,’ says Treasurer  — News content law expected to pass through parliament next week
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: IBM is exploring a sale of its IBM Watson Health business, which has roughly $1B in annual revenue and isn't currently profitable  —  Business has roughly $1 billion in revenue and isn't profitable, sources say  —  International Business Machines Corp. is exploring a potential sale …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google releases Android 12 developer preview, available for Pixel devices, with under-the-hood changes adding security, support for more media formats, and more  —  The big, consumer-facing changes will come later this year  —  Google is releasing a developer preview for the next version of Android …
Nikkei Asia:
Sources: Huawei notifies suppliers that it plans to order components for 70M to 80M smartphones this year, down over 60% from the 189M it shipped last year  —  China's largest handset maker suffers from US sanctions Biden appears to back  —  TOKYO — Huawei Technologies has notified …
Ina Fried / Axios:
Report: Google's AI Chief Jeff Dean apologizes in an email after Timnit Gebru's exit, saying his team should have managed the situation “with more sensitivity”  —  Google told employees Friday it has wrapped up its investigation into the ouster of prominent AI researcher Timnit Gebru.
Bloomberg:
Alex Mahadevan / Poynter:
An early analysis of Birdwatch, Twitter's crowdsourced fact-checking pilot with about 1,000 users, shows partisan rhetoric and a lack of source citations  —  A Poynter analysis found that less than half of Birdwatch users include sources and many fact-checking notes contain partisan rhetoric.
Bloomberg:
EU regulators start the process of approving data-sharing arrangements with the UK, adopting a pair of “adequacy decisions” endorsing UK privacy protections  —  - EU commission announcement paves way for ‘adequacy decisions’  — EU readies measures in case of any ‘problematic development’

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
What will the next generation of developers do when AI writes the code?  —  Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon are betting that the junior devs we train today will be the senior engineers of tomorrow.
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:
UK tax compliance with Zoho Books  —  The evolving tax landscape in the UK has added an additional responsibility to business owners, accountants, and bookkeepers to ensure their choice of accounting software supports compliance …
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:
Anthropic IPO Panic, A Spy At OpenAI?, The Great Food Slop Debate
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.
Great Chat:
What happened to tech's backbone?
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.
The Upstarts Podcast:
The $7B Startup Mapping Your Health In Just One Hour | Neko's Hjalmar Nilsonne
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.
Cheeky Pint:
The company building underwater drones for $50,000
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
BG2 Pod:
Jensen Huang | Does AI Revenue Justify Capex, '27 AI Bottlenecks, Singularity, Open vs Closed & more
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
How to Run a Political Campaign in the TikTok Era (And How Not To)
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:50 PM ET, February 19, 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

Rest of World:
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

Earlier Picks

Ian Carlos Campbell / The Verge:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times: