Techmeme
April 12, 2021, 11:50 PM

Top News

Microsoft:
Microsoft says it has acquired speech tech company Nuance for $19.7B in cash, a 23% premium on its Friday closing price, as it boosts its healthcare offerings  —  Acquisition will combine solutions and expertise to deliver new cloud and AI capabilities across healthcare and other industries
Ryan Smith / AnandTech:
Nvidia unveils Grace, a high-performance Arm-based server CPU for large-scale neural network workloads, expected to become available in Nvidia products in 2023  —  Kicking off another busy Spring GPU Technology Conference for NVIDIA, this morning the graphics and accelerator designer …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is in early stages of developing a product that combines an Apple TV with a HomePod speaker and has a FaceTime camera and smart home functions  —  - Company also exploring Amazon-like speaker with iPad as screen  — Apple has trailed Amazon, Google in the connected home market
Julia Carrie Wong / The Guardian:
Sources detail how Facebook allowed state-backed political manipulation in small countries, prioritizing abuses considered PR risks in countries like the US  —  A Guardian investigation exposes the breadth of state-backed manipulation of the platform  —  Facebook has repeatedly allowed world leaders …
Brave Browser:
Brave is disabling Google's FLoC tracking method from all of its releases, saying it materially harms user privacy under the guise of being privacy-friendly  —  Peter Snyder, Senior Privacy Researcher at Brave  —  FLoC is a recent Google proposal that would have your browser share …
Ian Hamilton / UploadVR:
Facebook to host Oculus Gaming Showcase, a virtual event focused exclusively on VR games, on April 21, with streams on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch  —  Facebook will host an Oculus Gaming Showcase streaming to various sites on April 21.  —  The event will stream to Twitch, Facebook …
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Google to shut down Play Movies and TV app for Roku, Samsung, LG, and Vizio on June 15, will push users to use YouTube instead  —  After announcing Google TV last year, its predecessor had an unspoken expiration date.  This week, Google has confirmed that it will kill off the Play Movies & TV app …
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols / ZDNet:
Despite the backlash, Free Software Foundation doubles down on restoring Richard M. Stallman to its board after he issued a defensive non-apology apology  —  Weeks after being readmitted to the Free Software Foundation board, Stallman speaks and the board stands behind him.
Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:
Biden administration announces the nominations of ex-NSA deputy director Chris Inglis as first national cyber director and Jen Easterly as CISA head  —  The Biden administration plans on Monday to name a former senior National Security Agency official as the first national cyber director …
Zak Doffman / Forbes:
Researchers have discovered a flaw where any user can deactivate another user's WhatsApp via multiple 2FA requests and emailing support to deactivate account  —  A nasty new surprise for WhatsApp's 2 billion users today, with the discovery of an alarming security risk.
Axios:
Senator Josh Hawley unveils a proposal aimed at Big Tech that would bolster antitrust laws and ban acquisitions by companies with a market cap of over $100B  —  Corporate giants would be barred from acquisitions and century-old antitrust laws would get sharper teeth under a new proposal by Sen. Josh Hawley …
Tyler Wilde / PC Gamer:
Court filings show that Epic committed $444M on “minimum guarantees” for game developers that release on Epic Game Store but stay off of Steam for a year  —  Here's how much money Epic is burning to make the Epic Games Store a Steam competitor.  —  To take on Steam …
Hartley Charlton / MacRumors:
Apple Support docs show that unusual mid-production hardware changes were made to its A12, A13, and S5 chips last fall, to update the Secure Storage Component  —  Apple made unusual mid-production hardware changes to the A12, A13, and S5 processors in its devices in the fall of 2020 to update …
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
The FCC releases a speed test app on Android and iOS to help measure internet speeds in the US, and will use the data to inform its broadband deployment efforts  —  The FCC Speed Test App could help the agency correct its data  —  The Federal Communications Commission has released …

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More News

Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Liam Tung / ZDNet:
Lulu Yilun Chen / Bloomberg:
Pranob Mehrotra / XDA Developers:
Leo Kelion / BBC:
Bloomberg: