Techmeme: Daily Mail owner files antitrust suit against Google alleging it punishes publishers in search if they don't sell enough ad space through Google's marketplace (Patience Haggin/Wall Street Journal)

Top News

Sources: Microsoft is revamping its Store app on Windows 10 and will let devs submit unpackaged Win32 apps, use third-party commerce platforms in apps, and more — Microsoft wants to bring life back to the Store app on Windows 10. — What you need to know — Microsoft is working on a new Store app for Windows 10.

More: Laptop Mag, Tom's Hardware, PCMag, Engadget, The Verge, CNET, WinBuzzer, Petri, MSPoweruser, Neowin, and OnMSFT.com

Tweets: @zacbowden, @tomwarren, and @tomwarren

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Venmo adds support for buying, holding, and selling four types of cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash — Venmo is adding support for cryptocurrency, starting today. The company says it will begin to roll out the ability for Venmo's more than 70 million users to buy …

More: CNET, FinLedger, Bloomberg, Forbes, CNBC, 9to5Mac, Gizmodo, Android Authority, ZDNet, BGR, CoinGeek, Bitcoin Magazine, MUO, BitcoinExchangeGuide, CoinDesk, TechSpot, coinspeaker.com, USA Today, Decrypt, The Block, Cointelegraph, Fortune, Finextra, CryptoSlate, The Verge, Mashable, and The Mac Observer

Tweets: @rcubed2003, @imkialikethecar, and @mdudas

S. Shah / Engadget:

Amazon is opening a hair salon in London, where customers can try on virtual hair colors using an AR color bar and shop beauty products using QR codes — Amazon reinvented supermarket shopping with its — checkout-less Go stores, now the e-commerce giant is applying its tech prowess to hairdressing.

More: UK Day One Blog, TechCrunch, The Verge, Insider, PCMag, CNET, Bloomberg, PYMNTS.com, and CNBC

Tweets: @hypervisible, @parismarx, @mparekh, and @shiraovide

Alexander Osipovich / Wall Street Journal:

Binance hires Brian Brooks as CEO, starting May 1; he was previously acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency under the Trump administration — Brian Brooks, an acting head of Office of the Comptroller of the Currency under Trump, will become CEO of Binance.US

More: Business Wire, CoinDesk, Decrypt, coinspeaker.com, Crypto Briefing, Bitcoin Magazine, The Block, and Cointelegraph

Charlie Osborne / ZDNet:

Internal Facebook emails, accidentally sent to a journalist, show its “long-term strategy” for data scraping incidents, framing it as a “broad industry issue” — More scraping incidents are “expected” in the future. — An internal email accidentally leaked by Facebook …

More: CNET, Insider, and Graham Cluley

Tweets: @intidc, @intidc, @carolecadwalla, @carolecadwalla, @princey1976, @marietjeschaake, @elinor_carmi, @blackamazon, @carolecadwalla, @jason_kint, and @jason_kint

New York Times:

Governments around the world are moving to limit the power of tech companies with an urgency and breadth that no single industry had experienced before — Never before have so many countries, including China, moved with such vigor at the same time to limit the power of a single industry.

Tweets: @satariano, @davidakaye, @nytimes, @uniglobalunion, @patrickgaspard, @ron_fournier, and @katieharbath

Wall Street Journal:

An in-depth look at the reasons behind the chip shortage including focus on higher-margin, cutting-edge chips, stockpiling due to US China trade tensions, more — Semiconductor producers are trying to increase output, but the small gains are unlikely to fix the shortfalls hampering production …

Tweets: @wsj, @chinarealtime, @dimartinobooth, and @emilyzfeng

Nikkei Asia:

Taiwan's leading DRAM maker Nanya Technology announces plans to build a $10B chip plant to alleviate global chip shortage and capture demand for 5G components

More: Electronics Weekly, Focus Taiwan, and DigiTimes

Tweets: @rjhcustbc and @tculpan

Patience Haggin / Wall Street Journal:

Daily Mail owner files antitrust suit against Google alleging it punishes publishers in search if they don't sell enough ad space through Google's marketplace — Publisher says its U.K. royals coverage was played down in search results; claims it was punished for not steering sufficient ad space to Google

More: The Hill, Reuters, Beyond Search, and cityam.com

Tweets: @asharma, @patiencehaggin, and @patiencehaggin

See also Mediagazer

Janko Roettgers / Protocol:

Q&A with Magic Leap CEO on its enterprise pivot and Magic Leap 2, 50% smaller and 20% lighter than its last AR headset, coming Q4 via an early adopter program — Magic Leap is getting ready to release the next version of its augmented reality headset through an early adopter program during …

More: CNET. Tweets: @jank0

Mitchell Clark / The Verge:

Nextdoor is introducing an anti-racism notification, which asks users to reconsider posting content if the app thinks it may be offensive — It calls the feature the anti-racism notification — Nextdoor is introducing a new anti-racism notification, which asks users to reconsider posting content …

More: Nextdoor Blog, Engadget, Mashable, SlashGear, and MUO

Tweets: @marshallk, @jjcordovak, @thatsdaniforyou, @frediculous, @jaycebeasley, @tcn33, @blowdart, @joshsternberg, and @megadestructo

Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch:

Clearbanc, which provides capital to e-commerce companies for a share of their revenue, rebrands as Clearco, and raises $100M Series C at a $2B valuation — The fintech company raises a $100 million Series C — After five years of providing non-dilutive financing for founders, Clearbanc is tired of being only a bank.

More: Reuters, BetaKit, Insider, and The Logic

Tweets: @nmasc_ and @nmasc_

Ryan Browne / CNBC:

Source: Facebook-backed Diem is aiming to launch a pilot with a single stablecoin pegged to the US dollar later this year — - The Diem Association is aiming to launch a pilot with a single stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar in 2021, according to a person familiar with the matter.

More: CoinDesk, Gizmodo, coinspeaker.com, Cointelegraph, CNBC, and Engadget

Tweets: @1e9petrichor, @kfeng027, and @ryan_browne_

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

Chargebee, which helps enterprises with billing, subscriptions, revenue operations, and compliance, raises $125M at a $1.4B valuation — A startup that enables businesses to set up and manage their billing, subscription, revenue operations and compliance has become the newest firm to earn the much coveted unicorn status.

More: The Economic Times, The Economic Times, Entrackr, VentureBeat, Crunchbase News, Moneycontrol, Silicon Canals, PaymentsSource, PitchBook, and Tech in Asia

Tweets: @sub8u and @shashank_kr

Linda Sui / Strategy Analytics:

Strategy Analytics: global smartphone shipments rose to 340M units in Q1 2021, up 24% YoY, representing the highest growth since 2015 — According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, global smartphone shipments were 340 million units in Q1 2021, up +24% YoY representing the highest growth since 2015.

More: Android Authority, phonearena.com, Gizchina, Telecoms.com, South China Morning Post, and Android Headlines

Sohini Podder / Reuters:

Classy, which builds fundraising software for non-profit institutions, raises $118M led by Norwest Venture Partners — Classy, a technology company which builds fundraising software for non-profit institutions, has raised $118 million in fresh capital from venture capital firm Norwest Venture Partners …

More: Crunchbase News. Tweets: @caseynewton

Rachel Levin / Outside Online:

As a disproportionate number of people who purchased homes in Tahoe in 2020 were tech employees from the Bay Area, locals worry about “Aspenification of Tahoe” — Rachel Levin is a San Francisco-based journalist who has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker …

Tweets: @rachellevinsf, @chrisasolomon, @sesmith, @skiingrogge, @outsidemagazine, @talkpoverty, @hkanji, @tahoevibe, and @sundaylongread

John Seabrook / New Yorker:

As NYC selects Bird, Lime, and Veo for its e-scooter pilot program, a look at why NYC is seen as an invaluable proving ground for the scooter-sharing concept — Fleets of electric scooters have taken over city streets worldwide. With New York finally climbing aboard, do they represent a tech hustle or a transit revolution?

Tweets: @newyorker, @micromobilityco, @newyorker, @patrickmorgan, and @catgioino

Ed Caesar / New Yorker:

An in-depth look at North Korea's extensive and expanding hacking operations, almost always focused on generating revenue for the closed-off country — The country's cyber forces have raked in billions of dollars for the regime by pulling off schemes ranging from A.T.M. heists to cryptocurrency thefts.

More: DataBreaches.net. Tweets: @runasand, @newyorker, and @mattysino

Monica Chin / The Verge:

Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 (15-inch) review: big performance gains, excellent battery life, and very light, but not many ports and no Thunderbolt support — Microsoft's newest Surface Laptop brings better battery life and a better chip — In look and feel, very little has changed from the last generation.

Tweets: @scaryifliteral, @dcseifert, and @tomwarren

Liz Lee / Reuters:

Microsoft to establish its first data center region in Malaysia as part of its Bersama Malaysia initiative, which aims to skill 1M Malaysians by the end of 2023 — KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Microsoft Corporation will invest $1 billion over the next five years in Malaysia as part …

More: ZDNet, Microsoft, The Register, ZDNet, OnMSFT.com, and MSPoweruser

Tweets: @maryjofoley, @bradsmi, and @maryjofoley

Joanna Ossinger / Bloomberg:

Dogecoin rose ~10% in the past 24 hours driven by the #DogeDay hashtag for 4/20; it jumped 400%+ in the past week and now has a market cap of $53B+ — - DogeDay trends on social media, pushing prices near 42 cents — ‘Dogecoin is symptomatic of the zeitgeist,’ says Trenchev

More: Fortune, TechRadar, Bloomberg, Bloomberg, Cryptonews, CryptoSlate, Cointelegraph, and Slashdot

Tweets: @annairrera, @rustybrick, @romainebostick, @teroterotero, @nexofinance, and @dhm

Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:

Octopus Deploy, which develops a deployment automation tool, raises $172.5M from Insight Partners — Founded almost a decade ago, Octopus Deploy has grown to serve 25,000 organizations, including Microsoft, NASA, Xero, Disney and Stack Overflow, through bootstrapping.

More: VentureBeat and PR Newswire

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Era Software, which created EraDB to help enterprises manage hyperscale, cloud-native workloads, raises $15.25M led by Playground Global — Join Transform 2021 this July 12-16. Register fo r the AI event of the year. — Era Software, creator of the EraDB time-series database architecture …

More: CoinDesk, Decrypt, GeekWire, and Business Wire

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:

PayPal to launch a local wallet in China focused on cross-border payments; PayPal is the first foreign firm with 100% ownership of a payments platform in China — - PayPal plans to set up a local wallet in China focused on cross-border payments. — In January, the U.S. fintech became …

More: coinspeaker.com and PYMNTS.com

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 …

Bitrix24:

Bitrix24 powers the next generation of high-performing businesses — Chat, projects, CRM, and automation — all in one place. Replace dozens of tools so your team moves faster, collaborates smarter, and grows effortlessly.

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.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

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.

Decoder with Nilay Patel:

Anthropic's quest to study the negative effects of AI is under pressure

A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.

Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.

Lenny's Podcast:

Why LinkedIn is turning PMs into AI-powered "full stack builders" | Tomer Cohen (LinkedIn CPO)

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.

Great Chat:

Code red: our favorite tech rivalries

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:

How An AI Model Learned To Be Bad — With Evan Hubinger And Monte MacDiarmid

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.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:55 AM ET, April 20, 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.