Techmeme
March 22, 2021, 3:05 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple's HomePod mini has a sensor, currently disabled, that measures temperature and humidity; Apple is working on speakers with screens and cameras  —  Apple Inc.'s HomePod mini speaker launched last November with new features such as a home intercom system.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft says it will begin a limited reopening of its Redmond HQ on March 29 and plans a future focus on hybrid workplaces  —  Microsoft is letting some employees back into the office  —  Microsoft is planning to start reopening its Redmond, Seattle headquarters later this month.
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Judge certifies a class action suit against Apple that claims it knew for years that MacBooks' butterfly keyboards were flawed and small fixes were insufficient  —  The suit says Apple knew its thinner keyboard was rotten  —  A judge has certified a class action suit against Apple for its fragile butterfly keyboard design.
Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch:
Spark Capital decides to “sever all ties” with Dispo after claims of sexual assault against a former Vlog Squad member; David Dobrik departs from Dispo  —  Dobrik departs from Dispo board and leaves company  —  Venture capital firm Spark Capital has decided to ‘sever all ties’ with Dispo …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Long time Google VP Caesar Sengupta, who was in charge of Next Billion Users, Google Pay, and oversaw Chrome OS, is leaving the company after 15 years  —  One big focus for Google today is making products for what it dubs the Next Billion Users in countries just coming online.
Andy Day / Fstoppers:
Instead of convincing people merely to buy things that they don't need, NFTs are convincing them to buy imaginary optimism based on a mass enchantment and FOMO  —  Photographers, filmmakers, and digital artists are falling over themselves to mint NFTs in a get-rich-quick scheme …
Nikkei Asia:
Sources: Samsung plans to release new Galaxy Z Flip and Fold phones this year and is working on a double-folding phone to be unveiled as early as this year  —  South Korean tech titan is working on new double-hinged model  —  TAIPEI/SEOUL — Samsung Electronics is betting heavily on foldable smartphones …
Reuters:
Sources: Box is exploring a sale, discussing a potential deal with other companies and PE firms, amid pressure from hedge fund Starboard over stock performance  —  (Reuters) - U.S. cloud services provide Box Inc is exploring a sale amid pressure from hedge fund Starboard Value LP over its stock performance …
Tweets: @yoda
Yang Jie / Wall Street Journal:
Japanese chip maker Renesas says a fire at one its plants has halted production for at least a month, impacting automakers, and estimates losses at $160M/month  —  Shares of Toyota, Nissan and Honda fell Monday  —  TOKYO—A fire at a factory of one of the world's leading auto chip makers …
Reuters:
ByteDance says its Nuverse video game unit has acquired Shanghai-based gaming studio Moonton Technology, sources say for around $4B  —  (Reuters) - ByteDance said on Monday its video games unit Nuverse has agreed to acquire Shanghai-based gaming studio Moonton Technology, as it seeks to further expand into the video games business.
Lauren Kaori Gurley / VICE:
NLRB docs show it filed a federal complaint against Amazon after a probe found Amazon illegally questioned and threatened a leader of Amazon walkouts in Queens  —  The state of New York is also suing Amazon for alleged health and safety violations at the same Queens warehouse where workers led the first COVID-19-related walkouts.
More: Insider

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
Pro tips: 5 ways to close WhatsApp leads in Zoho CRM  —  This is a guest post by Orkhan Jafarli, Growth PM at TimelinesAI.More buyers now reach out on WhatsApp before they ever fill out a form.
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

The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'A Scam Held Together With Patriotism and Golden Paint', With Quinn Nelson
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Abridge's Shiv Rao: The Doctor Founder Taking On Microsoft In Healthcare AI
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's Bots Break Containment and Hack Hugging Face Autonomously — With Alex Stamos
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:
Too big to laugh: how tech lost its sense of humor
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Substack Wants To Become A Social Network; Beehiiv Wants To Stay Invisible
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:05 PM ET, March 22, 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

Earlier Picks

Benedict Evans:
Axios:
Ronn Blitzer / Fox News: