Techmeme
April 16, 2021, 5:40 PM

Top News

Anne Steele / Wall Street Journal:
In a letter to artists, Apple says it pays a penny per stream, roughly double Spotify, which pays an average of about one-third to half a penny per stream  —  Streaming services open up about artist payouts, seeking to win credibility and subscribers  —  Apple Music told artists it pays …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Firefox and major Chromium browsers like Edge, Opera, Brave, and Vivaldi are not joining FLoC, Google's proposed ad technology to replace third-party cookies  —  Brave, Vivaldi, Edge, and Mozilla are all out  —  Google is going it alone with its proposed advertising technology to replace third-party cookies.
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency that started out as a joke in 2013, now has a market cap of $40B+ after growing nearly 400%+ in the past seven days  —  - Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency based on the “Doge” meme, which rose to popularity in late 2013.  It started out as a joke.
Cristiano Lima / Politico:
Spencer Soper / Bloomberg:
Sources: Amazon is planning a furniture service that would require drivers to assemble items and take them back on the spot if the customer isn't satisfied  —  - Service expansion to appliances could target Home Depot, Lowes  — Online furniture sales grew 41% in pandemic to $36.1 billion
Naaman Zhou / The Guardian:
Australian Federal Court rules Google misled Android users into thinking it would not collect their location data when they turned location history off  —  Google collected data on some Android and Pixel phones even when customers ticked ‘No’ or ‘Do not collect’
NBC News:
US sanctions Russia for 2020 election interference and SolarWinds hack, blacklisting six tech companies that provide support to Russian intelligence services  —  The United States is hitting Russia with fresh sanctions for interference in the 2020 presidential election …
Associated Press:
Patrick Howell O'Neill / MIT Technology Review:
The Guardian:
Facebook planned to remove a network of fake accounts that artificially inflated the popularity of an MP in India, until it realized it was for a BJP politician  —  Whistleblower points to double standard in Facebook's enforcement of rules against powerful  —  Facebook allowed a network …
Alex Heath / The Information:
Sources: group messaging app IRL is in talks to raise $50M+ at a $1B valuation; the company was last valued at $100M in September  —  Group messaging app IRL is in talks to raise more than $50 million at a $1 billion valuation, 10 times the level of its last round, according to two people familiar with the matter.
David Priest / CNET:
Jeff Bezos says Amazon Prime now has 200M+ subscribers, up 50M from the beginning of 2020  —  A new letter to shareholders from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed that the tech giant's Prime service now has over 200 million subscribers.  That's up 50 million from the beginning of 2020.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Ece Toksabay / Reuters:
Turkey's central bank bans the use of cryptocurrencies and crypto assets to pay for goods and services directly or indirectly  —  Bitcoin tumbled more than 4% on Friday after Turkey's central bank banned the use of cryptocurrencies and crypto assets for purchases citing possible “irreparable” damage and transaction risks.
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Apple's App Store hosted kids' games that became crypto-based casinos if launched from some non-US locations  —  Kosta Eleftheriou has found another iOS scam  —  In popular culture, access to an illicit gambling den is as easy as stumbling into the right shop and saying the password — or greasing some palms.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Transform ML Experimentation with Tangle  —  Save months of compute time with Tangle, built by Shopify.  Try this open-source platform to simplify ML workflows, ensure reproducibility, and seamlessly share with collaborators.
Zoho:
Contract Signed.  Project Ready.  Tasks Created.  —  Every project begins with a promise; a contract that outlines the deliverables, the timelines, and the terms.  But for most businesses …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:
The 100-person AI lab that became Anthropic and Google's secret weapon | Edwin Chen (Surge AI)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
AI Device Wars Heat Up, RIP Metaverse?, Netflix Acquires Warner Brothers
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:
"Hollywood is Truly Freaked Out." Inside the Netflix/WBD Deal with Lucas Shaw
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.
Hard Fork:
OpenAI Calls a 'Code Red' + Which Model Should I Use? + The Hard Fork Review of Slop
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.
Access:
Is Roblox making the internet better or worse? We asked the CEO
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:40 PM ET, April 16, 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

Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
Reuters:

Earlier Picks

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Wall Street Journal:
Diane Bartz / Reuters:
Politico: