Techmeme
March 4, 2021, 10:30 PM

Top News

Katherine Rosman / New York Times:
Square acquires a majority stake in Jay-Z's streaming service Tidal for $297M; Jay-Z will join Square's board  —  What did Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey talk about when they went yachting around the Hamptons together last summer?  Perhaps only Beyoncé knows.  —  Maybe now we do, too.
Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:
Sources: EU is set to press antitrust charges against Apple over App Store rules for competing music streaming services, following a complaint by Spotify  —  Brussels set to formally press charges alleging tech company used its dominance to squeeze out App Store rivals
Bloomberg:
UK antitrust authorities say they plan to investigate Apple's App Store to probe whether it is abusing its market power to restrict competition  —  - CMA taking into account Apple's ‘dominant’ position in apps  — Apple probe prompted by complaints from some developers
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft rolls out new features for Edge, including vertical tabs and a feature that it says can improve startup times by 29% to 41% after a device reboots  —  Microsoft Edge gets some new features for March  —  Microsoft is rolling out some new improvements to its Edge browser this month.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Leaked images show Sonos Roam, the company's smallest portable speaker, expected to ship on April 20 for $169  —  You're looking at the first images of the next speaker from Sonos.  Set to be priced at $169, the new device — it's called the Sonos Roam — is much smaller than the Sonos Move …
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
In the past month, three of the longest-running Russian cybercrime forums have been hacked, leaking their users' email addresses, login metadata, and more  —  Over the past few weeks, three of the longest running and most venerated Russian-language online forums serving thousands of experienced cybercriminals have been hacked.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple clarifies that users can't actually set a default music service in iOS 14.5 but has a feature that lets Siri attempt to learn preferred listening apps  —  Apple has clarified that the iOS 14.5 beta is not actually allowing users to select a new default music service, as has been reported.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google says it is speeding up the Chrome release cycle and will ship a new milestone every four weeks instead of the current six weeks  —  Google today announced that its Chrome browser is moving to a faster release cycle by shipping a new milestone every four weeks instead of the current six-week cycle …
Saqib Shah / Engadget:
Qualcomm announces Snapdragon Sound, an initiative to enhance the wireless sound experience by lowering latency and improving connection issues  —  Just days after it unveiled its project to bring  —  advanced haptics to Android, Qualcomm has announced another ambitious venture aimed at bridging the gaps in device performance.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Facebook adds one-to-one voice and video calling to the WhatsApp desktop app, but the browser version, WhatsApp Web, is not getting this feature at the moment  —  WhatsApp is rolling out support for voice and video calling to its desktop app, the Facebook-owned messaging service said Thursday …
Gilad Edelman / Wired:
Study: far-right pubs get 65% more engagement on Facebook when they publish fake news; liberal and centrist pubs get less engagement if they publish misinfo  —  Far-right pages that publish misinformation get the most interactions by far compared to other news sources, new research shows.
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Virtual events startup Hopin raises $400M at a $5.65B valuation, more than double its valuation in its November round  —  - Hopin says it's raised $400 million at a $5.65 billion valuation, more than double what it was worth in a November investment round.  — The latest financing round …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Stream, which lets developers build chat and activity streams into apps and other services with a few lines of code, raises $38M Series B  —  A lot of our communication these days with each other is digital, and today one of the companies enabling that — with APIs to build chat experiences into apps …
More: Stream and VentureBeat
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Zimperium analysis: 14% of Android and iOS apps connecting to cloud services like AWS or Azure, totaling ~19K apps, have misconfigurations that expose user data  —  It's the digital equivalent of leaving your windows or doors open when you leave the house—and in some cases, leaving them open all the time.
Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch:
Whatnot, a livestreaming service for buying and selling Pokémon cards and other collectibles, raises $20M Series A led by a16z  —  When I first wrote about Whatnot in February of last year, they were just getting started.  Aiming to be the GOAT of collectible toys …
New York Times:
Amazon has significantly expanded its footprint in NYC, where ~2.4M packages are delivered daily, adding at least nine delivery stations in the past year  —  The e-commerce giant added at least nine new warehouses in the city over the past year as 2.4 million packages a day strained the nation's largest urban delivery system.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Transform ML Experimentation with Tangle  —  Save months of compute time with Tangle, built by Shopify.  Try this open-source platform to simplify ML workflows, ensure reproducibility, and seamlessly share with collaborators.
Zoho:
Contract Signed.  Project Ready.  Tasks Created.  —  Every project begins with a promise; a contract that outlines the deliverables, the timelines, and the terms.  But for most businesses …
Bitrix24:
Bitrix24 powers the next generation of high-performing businesses  —  Chat, projects, CRM, and automation — all in one place.  Replace dozens of tools so your team moves faster, collaborates smarter, and grows effortlessly.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:
OpenAI Calls a 'Code Red' + Which Model Should I Use? + The Hard Fork Review of Slop
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.
Access:
Is Roblox making the internet better or worse? We asked the CEO
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Lenny's Podcast:
Why LinkedIn is turning PMs into AI-powered "full stack builders" | Tomer Cohen (LinkedIn CPO)
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.
Great Chat:
Code red: our favorite tech rivalries
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
How An AI Model Learned To Be Bad — With Evan Hubinger And Monte MacDiarmid
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:30 PM ET, March 4, 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

Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Earlier Picks

Sarah Butler / The Guardian:
William J. Broad / New York Times:
Casey Newton / Platformer: