Techmeme
March 11, 2021, 12:15 PM

Top News

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Mike Winkelmann, the digital artist known as Beeple, sold an NFT of his work for $69M, through a first-of-its-kind auction at Christie's  —  Through a first-of-its-kind auction at Christie's  —  Until October, the most Mike Winkelmann — the digital artist known as Beeple — had ever sold a print for was $100.
Karen Hao / MIT Technology Review:
The Markup:
Citizen Browser project's Split Screen tool shows Facebook's different News Feeds for Trump and Biden voters, based on data from 2,500+ users across the US  —  Facebook's recommendation algorithm shows different news, groups, and hashtags to different users.  But who sees what?
Bloomberg:
Three former employees say that 100+ employees at Verkada could view the camera feeds of its thousands of customers via widely used super admin accounts  —  - Former employee said issue was raised with Verkada executives  — Hackers gained access to 150,000 customer camera feeds
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Amazon has opened 11 Amazon Fresh stores around the US, with plans for at least 28 more  —  As many businesses struggled to survive the pandemic, Amazon.com Inc. was quietly building a national grocery chain.  —  The first Amazon Fresh store opened to the public in Los Angeles in September.
More: CNET and The Verge
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Crypto lending and borrowing service BlockFi raises $350M Series D at a valuation of $3B, bringing its total raised to around $450M  —  If there were any doubt about a cryptocurrency boom, we need look no further than at the explosion of growth of certain companies in the space.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Adobe rolls out a version of Photoshop optimized for Apple Silicon, claiming a 1.5X performance improvement over most Photoshop tasks on Intel Macs  —  Adobe says there are a ton of speed and performance gains  —  Lightroom was the first Adobe creative app to make the leap to Apple Silicon …
Reuters:
Bloomberg:
Documents: Apple denied Parler reentry into the App Store, citing a lack of changes; source says Parler let its three remaining iOS developers go  —  - Apple's recent review found ‘Nazi symbols’ on the Parler site  — Parler eliminates seven workers, most of whom were contractors
Stephen Warwick / iMore:
Twitter says it is testing displaying large images, instead of cropped previews, on iOS and Android and will add support for 4K photo uploads  —  “Sometimes it's better said with a picture or a video.”  —  What you need to know  — Twitter is testing new features that will let you see a single image in full on your timeline.
Damien Wilde / 9to5Google:
Oppo unveils Find X3 Pro with Snapdragon 888, 6.7" 120Hz display, 12GB RAM, 50 MP ultrawide camera, and a 3MP “microlens” for microscope style macro shots  —  The covers have now been lifted from the Oppo Find X3 series with three models — X3 Lite, X3 Neo, and X3 Pro …
CNBC:
Roblox closes at $69.50, valuing it at $38.26B, after opening under RBLX at $64.50, up 43% from its January funding round  —  - Roblox held its stock market debut on Wednesday through a direct listing and is now trading under ticker symbol RBLX.  — The company's stock closed at $69.50 apiece …
Chris Metinko / Crunchbase News:
Cowbell Cyber, which uses AI to assess risk and offer cyber insurance to companies with less than $1B in revenue, raises $20M Series A  —  Pleasanton, California-based Cowbell Cyber raised a $20 million Series A as more small and medium-sized enterprises look for insurance against the growing number of cyberattacks.
More: FinSMEs and ZDNet
Brent Kendall / Wall Street Journal:
Facebook says it has filed motions to dismiss antitrust lawsuits brought by the FTC and state AGs, arguing its conduct did not harm competition or consumers  —  Action marks its first legal salvo since the FTC and 46 states sued the company in December  —  WASHINGTON— Facebook Inc …
Bloomberg:
Coupang priced its IPO at $35 per share, above its target range, to raise $4.2B and give the South Korean e-commerce giant a market value of about $60B  —  - South Korean e-commerce company sells shares for $35 each  — Coupang shares set to begin trading Thursday on NYSE
Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:
Sources: EU regulators are struggling to gather enough evidence to bring antitrust charges against Amazon despite working on the case for nearly two years  —  Regulators face difficulties gathering evidence against tech giant nearly two years after probe was announced

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More News

Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch:
Alex Konrad / Forbes:

Earlier Picks

Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Ax Sharma / BleepingComputer:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Nikkei Asia: