Techmeme
March 31, 2021, 6:40 PM

Top News

Nick Clegg:
Nick Clegg defends Facebook, saying it is not in the company's interest, financially or reputationally, to push users towards ever more extreme content  —  In a recent article for The Atlantic, Adrienne LaFrance compared Facebook to a Doomsday Machine: “a device built with the sole purpose of destroying all human life.”
Josh Taylor / The Guardian:
Sami Fathi / MacRumors:
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
The Pentagon says Microsoft will build 120K custom HoloLens headsets for the US Army; Microsoft says the contract could be worth up to $21.88B over 10 years  —  - Microsoft will deliver to the U.S. Army more than 120,000 devices based on its HoloLens augmented reality headset.
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Biden announces $2T American Jobs Plan focused on improving US infrastructure, with $100B allocated for high-speed broadband access over eight years  —  It sets aside $100 billion for the effort  —  President Biden plans to announce a sweeping infrastructure plan Wednesday that includes $100 billion …
Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:
Apple says it is introducing two new Siri voices for English speakers and eliminating the default selection of a female voice, as part of iOS 14.5 beta 6  —  Apple is adding two new voices to Siri's English offerings, and eliminating the default ‘female voice’ selection in the latest beta version of iOS.
Financial Times:
Deliveroo closed down 26% in its LSE debut, after pricing shares at £3.90, valuing it at £5.2B; the poor debut is likely due to labor practice issues  —  Fall comes after food delivery company priced its shares at bottom end of range  —  Deliveroo's shares plunged 26 per cent …
Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:
Apple leads $50M Series B in music distributor UnitedMasters, with a16z and Alphabet participating; UnitedMasters enters a strategic partnership with Apple  —  Independent music distribution platform and tool factory UnitedMasters has raised a $50M series B round led by Apple.
Cade Metz / New York Times:
Turing Award goes to Jeffrey Ullman and Alfred Aho for their work on compilers, which underpin computer programming languages  —  Jeffrey Ullman and Alfred Aho developed many of the fundamental concepts that researchers use when they build new software.  —  When Alfred Aho and Jeffrey Ullman met …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Instagram announces Remix, a way to record Reels alongside other users, similar to TikTok's Duets  —  Instagram today is officially launching a new feature called Remix, which offers a way to record your Reels video alongside a video from another user.  The option is similar …
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
Squarespace says it is acquiring online restaurant services provider Tock for over $400M in cash and stock  —  - IPO candidate Squarespace raised funds at $10 billion value  — Chicago-based Tock works with restaurants on reservations  —  Website-hosting service Squarespace Inc. …
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Sources: Comcast's NBCUniversal is considering pulling its movies from HBO Max and Netflix and keeping future releases for Peacock  —  Media giant's NBCUniversal division wants to boost its own streaming service, Peacock  —  Comcast Corp.'s NBCUniversal is considering pulling its movies …
Peter Rubin / Wired:
A reflection on Facebook's VR efforts as the Oculus Rift turns five: an astonishing number of problems have been solved but many big challenges remain  —  A lot's happened since Facebook's first headset brought virtual reality to the masses.  Facebook might have been a first mover, but it also wants to be the last one.
Ken Klippenstein / The Intercept:
Leaked doc sheds light on “Veritas”, an Amazon FC Ambassador program conceived in 2018 that sought to train employees to defend Amazon and Bezos on social media  —  Amazon's small Twitter army of “ambassadors” was quietly conceived in 2018 under the codename “Veritas,” …
Emily Feng / NPR:
How Wuhan's HSMC created an unusable chip factory, becoming one of six multibillion-dollar Chinese chip project failures in the last two years  —  WUHAN, China — In 2019, the U.S. sanctioned two major Chinese telecom firms, temporarily cutting them off from a vital supply of semiconductor chips …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Source: Apple is planning to announce a mixed reality headset “sometime” in the next several months, possibly at an in-person event  —  Hi everyone—it's Mark.  On Tuesday, Apple Inc. announced what will be at least its fifth virtual product launch in a row and one of its most important events …
Caitlin McCabe / Wall Street Journal:
Robinhood says it will remove a confetti animation from its app, which appears upon making a first trade, after criticism that it “gamifies” investing  —  The confetti, which critics alleged was a gamification strategy, will be replaced with new designs
Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
Huawei reports 2020 revenue of $136.7B, up 3.8% YoY but slower than the 19%+ growth it saw in 2019, and net profit of $9.9B, up 3.2% YoY  —  - Huawei's revenue for 2020 totaled 891.4 billion yuan ($136.7 billion), a 3.8% year-on-year rise in yuan terms.  That was slower than the more than 19% revenue growth Huawei saw in 2019.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Sponsor of Arizona's HB2005 bill, which allows alternative payment systems in app stores, says it won't get a hearing this year after being pulled last week  —  Arizona House Bill 2005, a hotly contested piece of legislation that would have imposed developer-friendly changes to Apple …
Axios:
Survey: trust in tech declined globally in 2020 due to factors like misinfo and privacy concerns; in the US, tech fell from the “most trusted” in 2019, to ninth  —  Trust in tech — including companies specializing in AI, VR, 5G and the internet of things — fell all around the world last year …
Lawrence Weru / Slate:
The rise of Clubhouse and other audio-only social networks marginalizes people with speech impediments like stuttering  —  It's before sunrise and I'm doing some accounting while listening to conversations on Clubhouse.  On the app, people can schedule and host audio chat rooms …
Eric Geller / Politico:
Interviews with 15 people show CISA is underfunded, short on talent, outmatched by adversaries, and overwhelmed by the fallout from two massive cyberattacks  —  The agency that protects the U.S. from hackers is hobbled by funding woes, a talent shortage and growing pains that are jeopardizing …
Josh Eidelson / Bloomberg:
Google promises not to silence workers discussing pay, as part of a settlement with a new union that represents hundreds of employees and contract workers  —  - Alphabet Workers Union accused Google and vendor of wrongdoing  — Contract worker said pro-union Facebook post got her suspended
Ted Chiang / New Yorker:
For the foreseeable future, technological innovation will be driven by humans, not self-improving AI systems, so there won't be a “singularity”  —  We fear and yearn for “the singularity.”  But it will probably never come.  —  In the eleventh century, St. Anselm of Canterbury proposed …

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.
Zoho:
Celebrating 10 years of Zoho Marketplace  —  30 Zoho products,2,900+ extensions and integrations,1 million+ users, and2 million installations.Zoho Marketplace celebrates a decade-long journey of adding timeless value …
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

Big Technology Podcast:
Best of Big Technology: How Ozempic Changes Our Bodies, Minds, and Economy — With Johann Hari
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.
Hard Fork:
Zuckerberg's Anti-Doom Fantasy + Finally an A.I. Detector That Works + A.I. Math
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Joanna Stern on the New Siri, OpenAI's Weird Gadget, and Life After the Wall Street Journal
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.
Invest Like the Best:
Eric Vishria - A Decade of Lessons Investing in Software & Hardware
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'Getting the Snack Right', With Chance Miller
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.
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 6:40 PM ET, March 31, 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