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.

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