Techmeme
June 29, 2021, 11:05 PM

Top News

Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Microsoft and OpenAI announce GitHub Copilot, an AI-based tool to recommend code to software developers in almost any programming language  —  - GitHub, GitHub's parent company Microsoft and OpenAI have teamed up to deliver a tool that comes up with source code for programmers to use as they work.
Madeleine Hodson / PrivacySharks:
Data on 700M LinkedIn users for sale on a forum, with info like names, addresses, inferred salary; LinkedIn says it seems some of the data is from other sources  —  Things are not looking good for LinkedIn right now.  Just two months after a jaw-dropping 500 million profiles from the networking site …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Twitter says it fixed a bug that caused some users to lose access to its “Latest” chronological feed option on its web application  —  Update: Twitter's Kayvon Beykpour says this is a bug that it's working on fixing.  The Twitter Support account says the fix is rolled out.
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Facebook unveils Bulletin, its Substack newsletter competitor, but is not yet accepting signups and says it won't take a cut of creators' revenue “at launch”  —  Facebook won't take a cut ‘at launch’  —  Facebook is getting into the subscription newsletter game.
Scott Rosenberg / Axios:
Dismissals of FTC and state AGs suits against Facebook shows the difficulty of making antitrust charges stick and could spur lawmakers to toughen antitrust laws  —  A federal judge's decisions Monday tossed out antitrust lawsuits against Facebook — and threw cold water on the heated campaign …
New York Times:
Bloomberg:
Worldcoin, cofounded by Sam Altman, raises $25M, plans a cryptocurrency belonging to all people on earth, and is making a device to ID recipients via iris scan  —  Sam Altman has a new startup that intends to give a special type of cryptocurrency to every person on earth.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Shopify drops Shopify App Store's cut to 0% on devs' first $1M in revenue, says app developer partners earned $233M in 2020, more than 2018 and 2019 combined  —  Following similar moves by Apple, Google, and more recently Amazon, among others, e-commerce platform Shopify announced today it's …
Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post:
GAO report finds 20 out of 42 federal agencies surveyed use facial recognition tech and sheds light on how deeply the tech is integrated into federal agencies  —  Black Lives Matter protesters, Jan. 6 rioters and regular travelers are among those targeted by agencies using the tech, including the IRS and the Postal Service
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
After hackers wiped many of Western Digital's My Book Live devices, a look at the code suggests the manufacturer had removed authentication code  —  Western Digital removed code that would have prevented the wiping of petabytes of data.  —  Last week's mass-wiping of Western Digital …
The Information:
Source: Apple is on track to spend ~$300M on Google Cloud storage services in 2021, up ~50% from 2020, dwarfing ByteDance, Spotify, and other large customers  —  Apple executives have taken swipes at Google in the past over its privacy practices.  But the iPhone maker trusts Google enough …
Harry McCracken / Fast Company:
Neeva, a $4.95/month ad-free search engine from two ex-Google executives, launches after raising $77.5M  —  Sridhar Ramaswamy and Vivek Raghunathan helped turn Google into an ad giant.  Now they're starting over with a service whose only customers are its users.  —  A new search engine?
Shara Tibken / CNET:
Studies have found that certain neighborhoods across the US that were redlined in the past are the same areas without fast home internet service today  —  Communities that couldn't get mortgage loans in the 1940s are the same areas without fast home internet service today.  There's no easy fix.
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Instagram says it is running a small test that lets any user share links in their Stories through a sticker  —  Now with a linking sticker  —  Instagram has always limited who can post swipe-up links to their stories, but today, the company is starting a new test that could widen that ability.
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Orum, which provides an API to help financial institutions move money in real time, raises $56M Series B, bringing its total raised to $82M+  —  Orum, which aims to speed up the amount of time it takes to transfer money between banks, announced today it has raised $56 million in a Series B round of funding.
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Amazon debuts Reading Sidekick, which reads physical and digital books aloud from a catalog of over 700, for Kids Plus on Fire tablets and Echo devices  —  Reading Sidekick is available on Echo devices starting today  —  Amazon has announced a new feature for its Kids Plus service …
Reuters:
TP ICAP, the world's largest interdealer broker, says it is launching a cryptocurrency trading platform with Fidelity Investments and Standard Chartered  —  TP ICAP (TCAPI.L), the world's biggest interdealer broker, is launching a cryptocurrency trading platform with Fidelity Investments …
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Forum Brands, which provides market intelligence for e-commerce acquisitions, raises $27M Series A led by Norwest Venture Partners  —  The number of startups acquiring e-commerce businesses, especially those operating on Amazon, to grow and scale is increasing as more people than ever are shopping online.
More: WebWire and BestgamingproThanks:@vscpr
Tiffany Hsu / New York Times:
Outbrain files for an IPO aiming to raise over $100M, says it had $767M in revenue last year, $4.4M in net income, and funnels ads to 7,000+ websites like CNN  —  Outbrain, one of the top purveyors of clickbait ads, filed on Tuesday to raise at least $100 million through an initial public offering …
Tweets: @caseynewton
Dana Mattioli / Wall Street Journal:
Sources and docs: as part of contracts, Amazon has made 80+ deals for stakes in suppliers, often at below-market prices, a sign of how it leverages its power  —  Certain suppliers are asked to give Amazon the right to buy shares at potentially lower-than-market rates as part of their contract
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

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Faiz Siddiqui / Washington Post:

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