Techmeme
February 25, 2021, 9:10 AM

Top News

Alex Leary / Wall Street Journal:
Biden signs executive order mandating a 100-day review of supply chains, including for semiconductors used in products from cars to phones and rare-earth metals  —  The president signed an executive order with the aim of eventually increasing domestic production of critical materials
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Tech retailer Fry's Electronics announces it will cease operations effective immediately, blames industry changes and the pandemic for the shutdown  —  Your best buys are no longer at Fry's, guaranteed  —  Fry's Electronics, one of the last big brick-and-mortar electronics store chains …
Daniel Van Boom / CNET:
Australia passes news bargaining code that will require digital platforms like Google and Facebook to pay local media outlets and publishers for their content  —  Australia on Wednesday passed a new media law that had generated noisy pushback from internet giants Google and Facebook …
Rafael Frankel / About Facebook:
Facebook says it is banning all Myanmar military and military-controlled entities from Facebook and Instagram, and ads from military-linked commercial entities  —  Myanmar military banned from Facebook and Instagram with immediate effect.  —  Today, we are banning the remaining Myanmar military …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
India issues tougher rules for tech firms and streaming services like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Netflix over resolving user complaints and more  —  India announced sweeping rules to regulate social media firms, streaming services, and digital news outlets, joining a handful of other nations …
Maggie Fitzgerald / CNBC:
GameStop shares closed up nearly 104% on Wednesday, halting twice for volatility; GameStop said on Tuesday its CFO will resign; stock up 80%+ after hours  —  - GameStop announced Tuesday that its chief financial officer Jim Bell will resign on March 26.  — Sources familiar …
Lauren Kaori Gurley / VICE:
Amazon is sending postal mail to warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama urging them to “VOTE NO” on unionization, and has also pushed anti-union ads on Twitch  —  A mysterious new USPS mailbox has appeared on Amazon property amid a historic union drive in Bessemer, Alabama.
Michael McSweeney / The Block:
Optimism, which plans to help scale the Ethereum blockchain with a Layer 2 protocol, raises $25M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz  —  Optimism, a startup focused on the scalability of the Ethereum blockchain network, has raised a $25 million Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
ViacomCBS says Paramount+ will cost $5/month with ads and $10/month without ads; the ad tier will be available in June while the ad-free tier starts on March 4  —  ViacomCBS has a ‘mountain of content’ on the way to streaming, including a ‘Halo’ series and ‘Beavis and Butthead.’
Cherlynn Low / Engadget:
Microsoft announces industry cloud packages for financial services, available in March, and for manufacturing and nonprofits, available in June  —  new Industry Cloud service with a suite of tools for the healthcare sector last year and unveiling a Retail-specific version in January, Microsoft is ready to introduce more areas of focus.
Stephanie Condon / ZDNet:
Nvidia beats with Q4 revenue of $5B vs. $4.8B expected, up 61% YoY, data center revenue of $1.9B, up 97% YoY, and gaming revenue of $2.5B, up 67% YoY  —  The GPU maker beat Q4 market expectations with record sales in its two key areas of business.  —  Nvidia on Wednesday published fourth …
Bloomberg:
FCC reveals that for its 5G licenses auction, Verizon spent the most of any carrier with $45.5B, followed by AT&T with $23.4B, and T-Mobile with $9.3B  —  - AT&T is second at $23 billion in bids, followed by T-Mobile  — FCC releases results of so-called C-band airwaves sale
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
US private equity firm Francisco Partners acquires online genealogy tracking pioneer MyHeritage, source says for $600M  —  Genealogy tracking online is a big business, and today comes some M&A news for one of the bigger names in the field.  TechCrunch has learned and confirmed …
More: Geektime and CTechThanks:@ingridlunden
Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTube to roll out a “supervised” account option in beta in the coming months in more than 80 countries, aimed at kids that are too old for YouTube Kids  —  YouTube is launching a PG version of the internet's biggest video service.  —  A new “supervised” YouTube account option …
ProPublica:
Emails show how Facebook responded to requests by Turkey to censor content during the authoritarian government's 2018 military offensive against Kurds  —  Amid a 2018 Turkish military campaign, Facebook ultimately sided with Turkey's demand to block the page of a mostly Kurdish militia.
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
iRobot, which makes Roomba vacuums, says a software update to fix issues with i7 and s9 models will take several weeks, after users reported them acting “drunk”  —  Users have reported their robotic helpers acting ‘drunk’  —  iRobot, maker of the robotic Roomba vacuums …
Tim Anderson / The Register:
Google says it has been sponsoring two full-time Linux developers at the Linux Foundation for years to improve security and hopes other companies will follow  —  Plus: Why the Chocolate Factory only uses code it builds from source  —  Interview Worried about the security of Linux and open-source code …

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More News

Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios:
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Earlier Picks

Taylor Lyles / The Verge:
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Sean Hollister / The Verge: