Techmeme
April 8, 2021, 7:20 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: Twitter discussed acquiring Clubhouse for around $4B but the talks fell apart; Clubhouse is now looking to raise funding at a $4B valuation  —  - Talks no longer active between Twitter, social media startup  — Clubhouse is seeking to raise funding at a similar valuation
Max Chafkin / Bloomberg:
Peter Thiel says he is a pro-Bitcoin maximalist, but Bitcoin 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 Culliford / Reuters:
Facebook says it did not notify users about the 2019 data leak affecting 533M accounts at the time and doesn't plan to do so now  —  (Reuters) - Facebook Inc did not notify the more than 530 million users whose details were obtained through the misuse of a feature before 2019 and recently …
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
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 …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Facebook's NPE team launches a public beta for Hotline, a web-based app letting creators stream live video or audio-only Q&As; events are recorded automatically  —  Facebook's internal R&D group, NPE Team, has today launched its latest experiment, Hotline, into public beta testing.
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.
Nikkei Asia:
Sources: production of some MacBooks and iPads has been postponed due to the global component shortage, a sign that the chip shortage is growing more serious  —  US tech giant's headaches suggest even worse chip shortages lie ahead  —  TAIPEI — Production of some MacBooks and iPads …
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.
Quint Forgey / Politico:
Twitter says it won't let the US National Archives make @realDonaldTrump's old tweets available publicly via Twitter's platform, citing his permanent suspension  —  Twitter will not allow the National Archives to make former President Donald Trump's past tweets from his @realDonaldTrump account available …
Dave Lee / Financial Times:
Zoe Schiffer / The Verge:
Twitch expands its misconduct policy to ban users who harass members of its community, even when that harassment takes place off Twitch  —  It's a major expansion of the platform's misconduct policy  —  Twitch will now ban users who harass members of its community — even when that harassment takes place off Twitch.
Tate Ryan-Mosley / MIT Technology Review:
An in-depth look at the impact, often negative and not fully understood, of AR beauty filters on social media, especially on girls and young women  —  Veronica started using filters to edit pictures of herself on social media when she was 14 years old.  She remembers everyone in her middle school …
Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times:
Indian social media startup ShareChat raises $502M from investors including Tiger Global, Snap, and Twitter, at a valuation of $2.1B, and says it has 160M MAUs  —  Indian social media company raised $500m for short-video app Moj  —  Indian social media firm ShareChat has raised more than half …
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Pew: YouTube usage grew from 73% of US adults in 2019 to 81% in 2021, with 95% of 18- to 29-year-olds using the service; 69% use Facebook and 21% use TikTok  —  - YouTube saw the most significant growth of any social media app among American users during the pandemic, according to the Pew Research Center.
Cromwell Schubarth / Silicon Valley Business Journal:
Mobile ad tech company AppLovin aims to raise up to $2.13B via its IPO, pricing shares at $75-$85 for a $30B+ valuation; S-1 showed a net loss of $126M in 2020  —  Mobile app and gaming company AppLovin Corp. set targets Wednesday for an initial public offering that could value it at more than $30 billion.
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
T-Mobile launches its 5G home internet service, costing $60-$65/month with no data caps, hardware rental fees, or annual contracts  —  Once again putting Sprint's mid-band spectrum to work  —  After a long pilot period, T-Mobile is making its 5G home internet service a reality.
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Apple details two ad measurements technologies that advertisers can use without tracking users, ahead of imminent rollout of App Tracking Transparency feature  —  Starting with iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, and tvOS 14.5, Apple will be requiring apps to receive a user's permission to track …

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
Bringing local models and sandboxed tools to Windows and GitHub Copilot  —  GitHub Copilot will soon determine when a task is best handled by on-device AI and when it needs cloud-scale models.
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:
Zoho Books now supports CT600 & Final Accounts Filing as an add-on in the FREE plan  —  Managing end-of-year filing for limited companies in the UK is often expensive and multi-layered.
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

Sources:
Qualcomm's CEO on the coming AI phone supercycle
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Bringing Back Mammoths And Building Noah's Ark 2.0 | Colossal's Ben Lamm
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.
Great Chat:
The launch industrial complex
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
Can AI Keep Growing Exponentially? Let's Ask SemiAnalysis — With Dylan Patel and Jordan Nanos
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Larry Ellison's Media Ambitions & Kevin Roose on AI's Biggest Gamble
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.
Training Data:
Google's AI Infrastructure Chief, Amin Vahdat, on the Physics & Economics of Frontier AI
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:20 AM 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

Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch: