Techmeme
August 2, 2021, 4:40 PM

Top News

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google unveils Pixel 6, with 6.4" 90Hz display, and Pixel 6 Pro, with 6.7" display and 4x optical zoom, featuring a Google-designed Tensor SoC, coming in fall  —  Google's new Tensor SoC is the heart of its next phone  —  Google is announcing the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro today …
Sam Rutherford / Gizmodo:
Google's Rick Osterloh demos Pixel 6's Tensor SoC, which enables real-time object detection and HDR in videos as well as real-time translation and live captions  —  We sat down with Google's phone chief, Rick Osterloh, to see what the Pixel 6 has in store.  —  Alerts
Jon Porter / The Verge:
YouTube trials Premium Lite subscription for €6.99/month, offering ad-free viewing across all major platforms, currently available in Europe  —  Currently being piloted in parts of Europe  —  Google is piloting a more affordable premium subscription tier for YouTube …
Greg Ahlstrand / CoinDesk:
Square reports Q2 revenue of $4.88B, up 143% YoY; Cash App's bitcoin yearly revenue was $2.72B, up 200%, as Square's bitcoin holdings had a $45M impairment loss  —  Cash App's bitcoin gross profit rose to $55 million, Square said in its Q2 letter to shareholders.
Reuters:
Olivia Solon / NBC News:
Female journalists and activists share how they were targeted and harassed by authoritarian regimes through hack-and-leak attacks using the Pegasus spyware  —  Ghada Oueiss, a Lebanese broadcast journalist at Al-Jazeera, was eating dinner at home with her husband last June when she received …
Politico:
Pro-Trump social network GETTR is awash with Islamic State propaganda, including graphic videos of beheadings and memes of a militant executing Trump  —  GETTR, the new platform started by members of the former president's inner circle, is awash with beheading videos and extremist content.
Dr. Ian Cutress / AnandTech:
A now-deleted tweet by an Intel executive suggests Thunderbolt 5 could double the bandwidth of existing Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4 connections to 80 Gbps  —  An executive visiting various research divisions across the globe isn't necessarily new, but with a focus on social media driving named individuals …
Sifted:
Current and former employees at German grocery delivery startup Gorillas describe arbitrary firings and exploitation of riders and warehouse workers  —  “It's like the new WeWork story,” says Ben*, who joined Gorillas' operations team last summer in Berlin.  —  The comparison to coworking company WeWork is a brutal one.
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft's desktop-as-a-service Windows 365 Cloud PC is generally available and costs between $20 to $162 per user per month, based on cores, RAM, and storage  —  Microsoft's Windows 365 Cloud PC service is now generally available, and pricing is public.  The service will cost users anywhere between $20 …
New Statesman:
Investigation: in the last five years, six EU academic institutes received tens of millions of pounds in funding from Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft  —  The search giant has provided tens of millions of pounds of funding to academics investigating issues closely related to its business model.
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
Researchers say a collection of nine vulnerabilities impact pneumatic tube systems installed in ~80% of all major US hospitals  —  Details have been published today about a collection of nine vulnerabilities known as PwnedPiper that impact a common type of medical equipment that's installed …
Heather Somerville / Wall Street Journal:
Non-VC funds invested in a record 42% of tech startup funding deals in Q2 2021; H1 '21 US startup funding was $150B, with FY 2021 on pace to double 2020's total  —  Hedge, mutual and pension funds are investing heavily, leading to higher valuations and more leverage for company founders
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Facebook to require all US on-campus staff to wear masks starting on Aug. 4, regardless of vaccination status, citing rising COVID cases and local regulations  —  - Facebook will begin requiring all of its employees to wear masks when on its campuses in the U.S., regardless of an employee's vaccination status.
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Filings: Larry Page and Sergey Brin have sold a combined $1B+ in Google stock since May 2021, the most since 2017; Google's share price has since tripled  —  - Google founders and majority stakeholders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have sold more than $1 billion worth of stock combined since May.
Tweets: @mycatalan88
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Estonian ride hailing startup Bolt, formerly known as Taxify, raises $713M at a ~$4.75B valuation, led by Sequoia, Tekne, and Ghisallo  —  - Estonian ride-hailing start-up Bolt has raised $713 million in fresh funding to push into the rapidly-growing online grocery delivery industry.
Leah Nylen / Politico:
Sources: FTC's lead economics expert in its antitrust case against Facebook, Carl Shapiro, has parted ways with the agency as it prepares to refile its case  —  Economics consultant Carl Shapiro, who hasn't commented on why he left the case, has a history of ideological differences with agency Chair Lina Khan.
Financial Times:
SPACs are being forced to fund deals with more expensive financing, like issuing convertible bonds, due to cash from institutional investors drying up  —  Target companies are raising debt rather than equity to push transactions over the line  —  Blank cheque companies are turning …
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Finite State, a supply chain security startup that helps uncover security flaws in device firmware, lands $30M Series B led by Energize Ventures  —  Columbus, Ohio-based Finite State, a startup that provides supply chain security for connected devices and critical infrastructure, has raised $30M in Series B funding.

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:
Environmental impact of remote support: Reducing carbon footprints in IT  —  Information technology is essential for powering core business processes and facilitating communication.
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:
Magatte Wade, Unlocking Prosperity in Africa (#53)
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 04/18 - Game Emulators On iOS And The Atlas Robot Lives!
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 4:40 PM ET, August 2, 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

Stephen Jewkes / Reuters:
More: Gizmodo and ANSA.it
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Emmanuel Akinwotu / The Guardian:

Earlier Picks

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:
Brent Lang / Variety:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Maya Wolfe-Robinson / The Guardian:
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters: