Techmeme
April 8, 2021, 4:20 PM

Top News

Nikkei Asia:
Sources: production of some MacBooks and iPads has been postponed due to the global component shortage; supply of some iPhone components is “quite tight”  —  US tech giant's headaches suggest even worse chip shortages lie ahead  —  TAIPEI — Production of some MacBooks and iPads …
New York Times:
Union seeking to represent Amazon workers in AL says 3,215 ballots were cast, 55% of those eligible; hundreds of ballots are being contested, mostly by Amazon  —  The union seeking to represent workers at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama said late Wednesday that there were 3,215 ballots cast …
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
As part of its filing in its case against Epic, Apple argues that the App Store doesn't lead the gaming market and so cannot be considered a monopoly  —  Back in August 2020, Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store after an update that bypassed the App Store's in-app purchases system.
Ben Lovejoy / 9to5Mac:
Ian Carlos Campbell / The Verge:
Lenovo debuts 6.92" Legion Phone Duel 2 with two 2,750 mAh batteries, two USB-C ports, two cooling fans, Snapdragon 888, and up to 18GB RAM, starting at €999  —  Multiple ports, a pop-up camera, and yes — two fans  —  Lenovo's next gaming phone leaked earlier this week …
Katie Canales / Insider:
Report: hackers scraped data of 500M LinkedIn users and posted it for sale online; LinkedIn confirms the dataset includes publicly viewable info from its site  —  - Personal data from 500 million LinkedIn users has been scraped and is reportedly for sale on a hacking forum.
James Vincent / The Verge:
Facebook says it is adding contextual labels like “satire page” and “public official” to some posts in News Feeds, to reduce confusion about their origin  —  Facebook is adding labels to satire pages in the News Feed  —  Facebook is adding additional labels to posts …
Emi Nietfeld / New York Times:
An ex-Google engineer says she endured harassment for over a year and that Google's positive external image led her to delay reporting it  —  I learned the hard way that no publicly traded company is a family.  —  Ms. Nietfeld is a software engineer.  She worked at Google from 2015 to 2019.
Luke Plunkett / Kotaku:
Intel details Bleep, which uses AI to redact audio when it detects “hate speech” and lets users toggle how much they want to hear  —  Intel gave a presentation at GDC a few weeks back, but I'm guessing nobody actually watched it because it took until this week for anyone to notice …
Matt Mullenweg:
Matt Mullenweg denounces Wix's bizarre marketing campaign against WordPress and says Wix's business model “is getting customers to pay more and more every year”  —  Wix, the website builder company you may remember from stealing WordPress code and lying about it …
David Priest / CNET:
Samsung announces $40 SmartTag Plus, which uses Bluetooth and UWB to locate lost items, and AR to guide users to them, launching globally on April 16  —  Samsung has announced it will launch its new $40 SmartTag Plus globally on April 16, with US availability to follow “in the coming weeks.”
Amanda Macias / CNBC:
US Commerce Department adds seven Chinese supercomputing entities to an export blacklist for allegedly building supercomputers used by Chinese military  —  - Commerce added seven Chinese supercomputing entities to a U.S. economic blacklist citing national security concerns.
Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:
Ramp, which provides corporate cards and spend management software, raises $115M at a $1.6B valuation, and says it is nearing a transaction rate of $1B  —  This morning, Ramp, which provides corporate cards and spend management software, announced that it has closed $115 million across two investments …
Max Chafkin / Bloomberg:
Peter Thiel says he is a “pro-Bitcoin maximalist”, but BTC threatens fiat money and might be used by China to undercut the US dollar's reserve currency status  —  Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist and conservative political donor, urged the U.S. government to consider tighter regulations …
Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:
Lawsuit alleges that, since 2017, civil rights groups have flagged hundreds of anti-Muslim Pages and Groups to Facebook, more than half of which stayed up  —  Suit says the company made false claims to consumers by promising, at congressional hearings, that it quickly removes hate groups and hate speech
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
UK startup TrueLayer, which lets fintech apps connect with customers' bank accounts, raises $70M Series D led by Addition, bringing its total raised to $142M  —  - TrueLayer lets fintech apps like Revolut and Freetrade connect with customers' bank accounts using technology known as APIs.
Melissa Repko / CNBC:
Best Buy is piloting Best Buy Beta, a new membership program with perks including unlimited tech support and free shipping for $200/yr, starting in IA, OK, PA  —  - Best Buy is piloting an annual membership program in select stores in Iowa, Oklahoma and eastern Pennsylvania.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Facebook open sources Casual Conversations, a data set with paid people who provided their age and gender, to help researchers evaluate fairness of AI models  —  Join GamesBeat Summit 2021 this April 28-29.  Register for a free or VIP pass today.  —  Facebook today open-sourced …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple unveils a revamped Find My program with support for third-party devices and says devices from Belkin, Chipolo, and VanMoof will be first to work with it  —  Apple today announced the launch of its Find My network accessory program, which is designed to allow third-party Bluetooth devices …

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
What will the next generation of developers do when AI writes the code?  —  Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon are betting that the junior devs we train today will be the senior engineers of tomorrow.
Will Reed:
The best sales leaders aren't job hunting.  Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach.  —  Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.
Zoho:
UK tax compliance with Zoho Books  —  The evolving tax landscape in the UK has added an additional responsibility to business owners, accountants, and bookkeepers to ensure their choice of accounting software supports compliance …
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:
Anthropic IPO Panic, A Spy At OpenAI?, The Great Food Slop Debate
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:
What happened to tech's backbone?
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.
The Upstarts Podcast:
The $7B Startup Mapping Your Health In Just One Hour | Neko's Hjalmar Nilsonne
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.
Cheeky Pint:
The company building underwater drones for $50,000
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
BG2 Pod:
Jensen Huang | Does AI Revenue Justify Capex, '27 AI Bottlenecks, Singularity, Open vs Closed & more
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
How to Run a Political Campaign in the TikTok Era (And How Not To)
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:20 PM ET, April 8, 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

Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: