Techmeme
July 21, 2021, 4:10 PM

Top News

Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Clubhouse is no longer invite-only as it exits beta and says the 10M people on its waitlist will be added to the app over time  —  The app goes wide  —  Clubhouse is going wide.  Co-founders Paul Davison and Rohan Seth announced today that the app is no longer invite-only.
CTech:
NSO CEO claims leaked list of 50K+ phone numbers potentially targeted with NSO spyware has “nothing to do with us” and had first heard about the list last month  —  “I'll give you a simple statement: Journalists, human rights activists, and civil organizations are all off-limits,” said Shalev Hulio
Matthew Green / A Few Thoughts …:
Mehul Srivastava / Financial Times:
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Epic Games acquires Sketchfab, which operates a repository with 4M+ 3D assets, for an undisclosed sum; Sketchfab reduces its store commission from 30% to 12%  —  New York-based startup Sketchfab has been acquired by Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite and Unreal Engine.
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Spanish police have arrested UK citizen Joseph O'Connor at the US' request over his alleged involvement in last year's hack of high-profile Twitter accounts  —  Authorities are still cracking down on participants in the July 2020  —  Twitter celebrity hacks.  Spanish National Police have
Katie Deighton / Wall Street Journal:
Tumblr starts testing Post+, which allows users to charge their followers a monthly fee in exchange for access to exclusive content, with Tumblr taking a 5% cut  —  Social platform is the latest to let users earn money from posting  —  Microblogging stalwart Tumblr on Wednesday began …
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Researchers detail two new local privilege escalation vulnerabilities, one in recent builds of Windows 10 and the preview of Windows 11, and the other in Linux  —  Both OSes have flaws that allow attackers with a toehold to elevate access.  —  The world woke up on Tuesday to two new vulnerabilities …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Twitter is testing a way to downvote Tweet replies on iOS to understand the types of replies users find relevant to a conversation; downvotes won't be public  —  Last year, Twitter's chief product officer Kayvon Beykpour confirmed that the social network was “exploring” the idea of adding a dislike button to the app.
Washington Post:
Top US Catholic Church official resigns after a Catholic media site obtained his alleged Grindr app and phone location data from an undisclosed data broker  —  The top administrator of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops resigned after a Catholic media site told the conference it had access …
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
The FTC formally pledges to fight unlawful right-to-repair restrictions, says it will use its power to lower repair costs and support independent repair shops  —  It comes days after the White House endorsed similar rules  —  The Federal Trade Commission formally pledged to take on unlawful …
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch:
Argo AI says it plans launch up to 1,000 autonomous vehicles on Lyft's network in some US cities over the next five years, starting with Miami later this year  —  Autonomous vehicle technology startup Argo AI and its backer and customer Ford plan to launch up to 1,000 self-driving vehicles …
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Google is shutting down Google Bookmarks on September 30, 2021, and clarifies Starred locations in Google Maps will not be deleted after Bookmarks shuts down  —  After 16 years of service, Google is about to shut down a service that isn't very well known.  On September 30, 2021 “Google Bookmarks” will be closed off for all users.
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
SEC Chairman Gary Gensler: stock tokens and stablecoins backed by securities “are implicated by the securities laws and must work within our securities regime”  —  Stock tokens and stablecoins backed by securities might be treated as securities under U.S. law, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said.
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
Core Scientific, which says it is the biggest bitcoin mining company in the US, says it will go public via SPAC at a valuation of around $4.3B  —  - Cryptocurrency mining operator Core Scientific is listing on the Nasdaq through a merger with Power & Digital Infrastructure Acquisition Corp.
BBC:
EU Commission proposes a new law that would force companies that transfer Bitcoin or other crypto-assets to collect details of recipients and senders  —  Proposed changes to EU law would force companies that transfer Bitcoin or other crypto-assets to collect details on the recipient and sender.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Byju's acquires Epic, a reading service for kids with a presence across 90% of elementary schools in the US, for $500M  —  Byju's said on Wednesday it has acquired California-headquartered reading platform Epic for $500 million, the latest in a series of moves from India's most valuable startup …
Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
Facial-recognition company Clearview AI raises $30M Series B amid legal and ethical concerns, with new investors requesting they not be publicly identified  —  Clearview AI is currently the target of multiple class-action lawsuits and a joint investigation by Britain and Australia.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Twitter begins rolling out a preview of a revamped TweetDeck in the US, Canada, and Australia, featuring an option for wider columns, an Explore column, more  —  Twitter is beginning to test a completely redesigned version of TweetDeck, the company announced today.

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI that works  —  Tribe builds tech for top AI companies.  Get in touch to learn how our bench of 500+ engineers and researchers can accelerate your roadmap.
Kulkan Security:
Hire Kulkan as your penetration testing partner  —  Kulkan prioritizes deep-dive manual security reviews, dissecting your software and infrastructure to find issues that once remediated can truly reduce security risk.
Zoho:
Stay alert: Zoho Cliq keeps you in the Checkout loop  —  Payment pages are becoming increasingly significant for various organizations.  For instance, consider an NGO committed to helping those in need.
Mastodon:
Donate to Mastodon  —  Mastodon gGmbH, the non-profit behind the open-source software powering the social web, relies entirely on support from users like you.  Donate directly with a credit card or through Patreon.
The Kevin Rose Show:
How to Cultivate Everyday Dharma, Suneel Gupta (#54)
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Tue. 04/23 - Microsoft's Own LLMs and Perplexity's Big Raise
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:10 PM ET, July 21, 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

Earlier Picks

Paul Benjamin Osterlund / Rest of World:
Kris Holt / Engadget: