Techmeme
March 15, 2021, 3:20 PM

Top News

Queenie Wong / CNET:
Facebook debuts tools to promote COVID-19 vaccinations: helping US users find slots, partnering with health authorities on WhatsApp, labeling all vaccine posts  —  Facebook said Monday it's releasing new tools to make it easier for people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 …
Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Joseph Cox / VICE:
Hacker pays a company called Sakari $16 to reroute a reporters' texts, using SMS 2FA to break into accounts and showing the need for regulation of SMS tools  —  A gaping flaw in SMS lets hackers take over phone numbers in minutes,by simply paying a company to reroute text messages.  —  Joseph Cox
Emily Birnbaum / Protocol:
Survey of 1,504 tech employees across the US: 78% say the tech industry is too powerful, 40% say it does more harm than good, 73% support more AI regulation  —  Big Tech executives do a lot of talking.  On their platforms, in interviews and on Capitol Hill.
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Kuo: Apple AirPods 3 will not enter mass production until Q3 2021; AirPods shipments will decline from 90M in 2020 to 78M in 2021 due to increasing competition  —  Despite a flurry of leaks surrounding next-gen AirPods in the last couple of weeks, Ming-Chi Kuo this morning said that new AirPods …
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Match Group invests in Garbo, a nonprofit that lets people run background checks with a first name and phone number, and will add the service to Tinder  —  Only a last name or phone number needed  —  Tinder and other Match Group-owned apps are going to let their users run background checks on possible dates.
Steven Bertoni / Forbes:
Low-code database service Airtable raises $270M Series E at a $5.77B valuation led by Greenoaks Capital, following $185M Series D at a $2.5B valuation last year  —  Howie Liu, the cofounder and CEO of cloud software start-up Airtable, has raised a $270 million Series E round at a valuation of $5.77 billion.
More: TechCrunch
AnandTech:
Tim Hardwick / MacRumors:
Apple says App Store supports over 330K jobs in the UK, up 10% YoY, with £3.6B in total earnings, up 22% YoY; App Store supports 1.7M jobs in Europe, up 7% YoY  —  Apple says its App Store now supports more than 330,000 jobs in the U.K., a 10% increase over the past year …
Financial Times:
Stripe raises $600M from Sequoia Capital and others at a valuation of $95B, becoming the most valuable private company in Silicon Valley  —  Payments provider becomes Silicon Valley's most valuable private company  —  Stripe has become the most valuable private company Silicon Valley has produced …

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New York Times:
Kim Lyons / The Verge: