Techmeme
July 22, 2021, 3:50 PM

Top News

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Many large websites were down on Thursday, including PlayStation Network, Steam, and UPS, due to issues with Akamai's Edge DNS service  —  Update 12:48 p.m. ET: Akamai says it has implemented a fix for the issue.  “We have implemented a fix for this issue, and based on current observations, the service is resuming normal operations.
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Q&A with Zuckerberg about his vision for the metaverse and its potential to further splinter our sense of shared reality, Biden's comments about Facebook, more  —  As June came to an end, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told his employees about an ambitious new initiative.
Edwin Chan / Bloomberg:
Sources: China sees Didi's decision to go public despite regulator pushback as a challenge to its authority and is considering unprecedented penalties  —  - Regulators weigh several penalties, from fine to delisting  — Ride-hailing startup raised $4.4 billion in U.S. listing
Bloomberg Law:
California Department of Fair Employment and Housing has sued Activision Blizzard for sexual harassment of and discrimination against its female staff  —  Video game giant Activision Blizzard Inc., maker of games including World of Warcraft and Diablo, fosters a “frat boy” …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
The Biden administration's promise to “review” Section 230 in response to anti-vax posts on Facebook will fail since being wrong online is protected speech  —  ‘Reviewing’ Section 230 isn't the answer to anti-vax posts  —  Last week, the White House declared war …
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Two Democratic senators introduce a bill to strip away social media platforms' Section 230 liability shield if they amplify harmful public health misinformation  —  A new bill would make Facebook liable for misinformation  —  As coronavirus cases rise in unvaccinated populations …
Nature:
Arm details PlasticARM, a 32-bit processor built on a flexible substrate, that it says can lead to embedding of low-cost, ultrathin chips into everyday objects  —  - John Biggs 1, - James Myers 1, - Jedrzej Kufel 1, - Emre Ozer  —  Abstract  —  Nearly 50 years ago, Intel created the world's …
James Vincent / The Verge:
DeepMind says it used AI to create a “transformative” map of human proteins; some compare the potential impact of the work to that of the Human Genome Project  —  DeepMind plans to release hundreds of millions of protein structures for free  —  AI research lab DeepMind has created …
Shoshana Wodinsky / Gizmodo:
Grindr has a track record of saying that data shared with brokers is encrypted and unidentifiable, despite the use of such data to out a Catholic priest, others  —  The latest scandal to rock the Catholic Church was both incredibly unnerving and entirely preventable.  Why isn't anyone doing anything about it?
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google's unified smartwatch platform with Samsung to be called Wear OS 3 and come as an update to a few watches in H2 2020, not including any Tizen watches  —  Only a few current watches will get it, but not until late 2022  —  Google has finally given its new, unified smartwatch platform a name — and it's an obvious one: Wear OS 3.
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Visa buys Currencycloud, which sells software for banks and fintech companies to process cross-border payments, in a deal valuing the UK startup at £700M  —  - Visa is buying Currencycloud in a deal valuing the British payments start-up at £700 million.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Twitter is testing a way to downvote 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.
Jessica Bursztynsky / CNBC:
Uber Freight to acquire Transplace, which makes transportation management software, from TPG, in a deal that values Transplace at $2.25B  —  - Uber Freight, the rideshare company's trucking division, said Thursday it's acquiring Transplace in a deal that values the transportation logistics company at $2.25 billion.
Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch:
Index Ventures closes a $900M early-stage fund, a $2B growth-stage fund, and a $200M seed-stage fund, giving Index $3B in new capital, its largest tranche yet  —  Index Ventures has closed a trio of new funds: a $900 million early-stage fund, a $2 billion growth-stage fund and a previously announced $200 million seed-stage fund.
Reuters:
Filing: Teads, which provides automated buying and selling of online ad space, plans to raise up to $808.5M in its US IPO, at a valuation of about $5B  —  Advertising technology company Teads BV, owned by French telecom company Altice, said on Wednesday it aims to raise up to $808.5 million through …
Jonathan Greig / ZDNet:
Analysis: 740 organizations faced ransomware attacks and had their data posted to leak sites in Q2 2021, up 47% QoQ; attacks on retail sector grew 183% QoQ  —  Digital Shadows' Q2 ransomware report highlighted that the number of victims posted to data leak sites increased by 47% compared to Q1.
Cheyenne Ligon / CoinDesk:
Thesis, the crypto incubator behind the Fold crypto rewards app and the decentralized Keep protocol, raises $21M Series A  —  ParaFi and Polychain are among the investors funding the studio behind the Fold app, the Keep protocol and an upcoming MetaMask competitor.
More: Blockworks

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Earlier Picks

Cameron Faulkner / The Verge:
CNN:
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Ashley Carman / The Verge: