Techmeme
April 11, 2021, 6:45 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: Microsoft in advanced talks to buy speech technology company Nuance Communications for ~$16B, or $56 a share, a 23% premium to Nuance's Friday close  —  - Price under discussion would value Nuance at $56 a share  — An agreement could be announced as soon as this week
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Responding to Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Mike Lee, Apple says it will make Chief Compliance Officer Kyle Andeer available at an upcoming hearing on app stores  —  - Company earlier declined to attend, now makes Andeer available  — Subcommittee investigating developer concerns, competition
Wall Street Journal:
Erroneously unredacted court docs reveal Google ran a secret program called “Project Bernanke” that used past bid data to boost its win rate in ad auctions  —  Program used past bid data to boost tech giant's win rate in advertising auctions, according to court filing
CyberNews:
Database containing 1.3M Clubhouse profiles was posted to a hacker forum; Clubhouse says it hasn't been breached, and the data is public info from its app  —  So far, it seems like it's been the worst week of the year for social media platforms in terms of data leaks, with Clubhouse seemingly joining the fray.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google confirms it is ending support for Google Shopping apps on Android and iOS, as it expands shopping functionality in Search and apps like YouTube  —  A new Google Shopping experience that featured a personalized homepage launched in 2019.  On Android, Google rebranded the existing Express app …
Pranav Dixit / BuzzFeed News:
Reporting on tech from India “feels like having a front-row seat to the country's rapid slide into authoritarianism”, as Big Tech companies remain silent  —  I love writing about tech.  But covering how a Hindu nationalist government is using it to destroy a secular democracy isn't what I signed up for.
Balaji S. Srinivasan:
Adding crypto to IndiaStack, a set of national APIs for payments and identity, could allow India to build an OSS stack for domestic and foreign transactions  —  Use the digital rupee to facilitate domestic commerce and crypto protocols to attract international investment.
Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
Some SMB owners who advertise heavily online say Facebook is speaking the truth about how iOS privacy changes might disproportionately affect such businesses  —  With big changes coming to iPhones, small online merchants are bracing for lost sales.  ‘Why is Apple now the decider?’
Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg:
Austin has been a top location for tech workers leaving CA amid the pandemic, and residents are worried about how the new wave is affecting Austin's culture  —  Matthew Congrove got the first offer on his house one month into the pandemic.  Now, says Congrove, who lives in an eclectic neighborhood …

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.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference  —  Stop preparing for agents.  Start running them.  100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
Stop re-entering Shopify order details in Zoho CRM  —  This is a guest blog from Xapplets (Zeeyes AI Inc).Here's a scene that plays out in many growing Shopify stores every day: a customer places an order …
IDrive:
IDrive Autonomy: low-cost L2+ driver assistance with AI  —  L2+ driver assistance with a scalable AI stack built for automotive companies and laying the foundation for the autonomous future.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
GPT-6 & OpenAI's Comeback, Hugging Face Attack Debate, Ballmer's Scandalous Legacy
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:
The A.I. Mob That Attacked Hugging Face + METR's Ajeya Cotra
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:
Data Centers, Elon Musk, and the New Politics of Tech, with David Weigel
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.
Sources:
Sam Altman on OpenAI's next model and the AI backlash
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.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Brian Singerman from GPx
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
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 6:45 PM ET, April 11, 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

Ari Levy / CNBC:
Bloomberg:
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Sarah Manavis / New Statesman:
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Zoe Schiffer / The Verge:
Raymond Zhong / New York Times:
About Amazon: