Techmeme
August 24, 2021, 3:45 AM

Top News

Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Instagram says it's retiring the swipe-up link feature, which allows users to visit external links by swiping up, in favor of tappable stickers starting Aug. 30  —  The swipe-up will be no more.  Instagram is planning to retire the feature, which allows people to visit external webpages by swiping up …
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Researchers find 1,000+ web apps, from Ford, American Airlines, and others, mistakenly exposed 38M records stored on Microsoft's Power Apps service  —  Misconfigured Power Apps from Microsoft led to more than a thousand web apps accessible to anyone who found them.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Tim Cook and Satya Nadella plan to attend a meeting with Joe Biden on Wednesday to discuss efforts by private companies to improve cybersecurity  —  Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella plan to attend a White House meeting with President Joe Biden …
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget:
Poly Network says it has now recovered all of $610M in cryptocurrencies it lost to a hacker, and is in the process of returning them to their rightful owners  —  One of the most unusual cryptocurrency heists in recent memory has come to a close.  On Monday, Poly Network …
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Facebook is running a test in the US to bring voice and video calling back to the main Facebook app, to reduce the need to jump between Facebook and Messenger  —  - New test will bring Messenger technology back into Facebook  —  Facebook Inc. is bringing voice and video calling …
Turner Wright / Cointelegraph:
Substack begins accepting bitcoin as payment for subscriptions, initially for a few crypto publications, using payments processor OpenNode  —  Substack has more than 500,000 paid subscribers, but Bitcoin payments will first be available to “a select group of crypto-focused publications.”
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
After criticism, Centre, the consortium founded by Circle and Coinbase, says it will exclusively back its USDC stablecoin reserves with cash and US treasuries  —  - Digital currency company Circle says it's changing the makeup of its dollar-pegged stablecoin USD Coin to just cash and U.S. Treasury bonds.
Android Developers Blog:
Google says it will make app ratings on the Play Store more personalized by localizing by users' country from November 2021 and device type from early 2022  —  Ratings and reviews are important.  They provide valuable quantitative and qualitative feedback on your users' reported experience …
Reuters:
Report: Didi has suspended plans to launch in the UK and Europe for at least a year, amid a regulatory backlash in China over data privacy  —  China's ride-hailing giant Didi Global Inc (DIDI.N) has suspended its plans to launch in Britain and continental Europe, The Telegraph reported on Monday …
Varsha Bansal / Rest of World:
A look at the decade long struggle to bring the script of Tulu, an Indian language, into Unicode, and the problem of keeping languages alive in the digital age  —  For 10 years, experts have tried to bring Tulu to smartphones.  But they can't agree on how.  —  • BENGALURU, INDIA
Nicole LaPorte / Fast Company:
Profile of Invisible Universe, which is developing animated franchises using characters born on social media with the help of influencers like Serena Williams  —  Last week, Realqaiqai, the Instagram handle for Qai Qai (pronounced “kway kway"), the doll turned social media star belonging to Olympia Ohanian …
Reuters:
JD.com reports net revenue of $39.14B in Q2, up 26% YoY, beating estimates, and added a record 32M users over the quarter amid ongoing regulatory tightening  —  Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com Inc on Monday told investors they do not expect any business impact from a wave …
Packy McCormick / Not Boring:
An in-depth look at Solana blockchain project: $0.0001/transaction and 65,000 transactions/second, well ahead of Bitcoin and Ethereum, and a $21.2B market cap  —  The $21B Blockchain and the Arrow of Time … Today's essay, the whole thing, is brought to you by... Solana  —  Hi friends 👋,
Gillian Tan / Bloomberg:
Nigerian mobile payments service OPay raises $400M led by Vision Fund 2 at a $2B valuation, marking SoftBank's first investment in Africa  —  - Sequoia Capital China and Redpoint China also participated  — Investment marks Vision Fund 2's first bet in Africa

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:
Fast, affordable law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
Zoho Mail MCP: Make your inbox work for you  —  Maya is the head of operations at a 500-person B2B software company.  She's sharp, she's busy, and she starts every morning the same way-with her coffee, laptop, inbox.Not to work.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

The Upstarts Podcast:
Writer's May Habib: Building AI Tools For Corporate 'Normal People' The Labs Leave Behind
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
A Nick, Dick, and Paul Buffet!
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Big Technology Podcast:
Anthropic's Labs Lead On Fable's Capabilities + Building AI-Native Products — With Mike Krieger
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Great Chat:
How much data do we actually want about our bodies?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Training Data:
Memory and Continual Learning: Engram's Dan Biderman and Jessy Lin
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:45 AM ET, August 24, 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

New York Times:
Patrick Klepek / VICE:
Ben Lovejoy / 9to5Mac:
Yogita Khatri / The Block:

Earlier Picks

Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Sami Fathi / MacRumors: