Techmeme
August 26, 2021, 8:35 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: TSMC plans to increase prices by ~10% for advanced chips and ~20% for less advanced chips, starting later this year or early next  —  TSMC to increase prices of most advanced chips by roughly 10%; less advanced chips will cost about 20% more  —  The world's largest contract chip maker …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple launches News Partner Program, which lowers commissions on in-app purchases to 15% for news publishers who participate in Apple News  —  Apple today is launching a new program that will allow subscription news organizations that participate in the Apple News app and meet certain requirements …
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
YouTube is implementing picture-in-picture functionality on its iOS app, starting with a testing window for Premium subscribers through October 31  —  YouTube is making good on its promise to  —  bring picture-in-picture viewing to iOS users.  TechCrunch
Wall Street Journal:
Q&A with John Binns, a 21-year-old American living in Turkey, who claims responsibility for the recent T-Mobile hack and says its security is “awful”  —  A 21-year-old American said he used an unprotected router to access millions of customer records in the mobile carrier's latest breach
Joan E. Solsman / CNET:
Netflix is testing games in its Android app in Poland, starting with two existing Stranger Things games  —  Playing on Netflix's mobile app is new, but the games themselves — two pixelated Stranger Things games — have already been available off Netflix for years.
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Internal corporate directory shows Microsoft has hired 15-year AWS veteran Charlie Bell as a corporate VP  —  - Charlie Bell is listed as a corporate vice president under Kathleen Hogan, Microsoft's human-resources chief  — Bell left Amazon recently after 15 years in a top leadership position at Amazon Web Services.
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Snap updates Snapchat's Scan feature, turning it into a visual search engine that identifies many things in the real world, like clothes or dog breeds  —  Snapchat's camera has to date mostly been associated with sending disappearing messages and goofy AR effects, like a virtual dancing hot dog.
Matthew Gault / VICE:
Reddit CEO responds after calls from users to purge the site of COVID-19 disinformation, saying “dissent is a part of Reddit and the foundation of democracy”  —  The CEO of Reddit has responded to calls from users to purge the site of disinformation, saying “dissent is a part of Reddit and the foundation of democracy.”
Alex Hern / The Guardian:
UK government says it will move away from EU's GDPR after Brexit, including possibly ending cookie consent popups, and names John Edwards as preferred ICO head  —  Culture secretary says move could lead to an end to irritating cookie popups and consent requests online
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
A history of Google's messaging apps and how a lack of any kind of top-down messaging leadership has led to a decade and a half of failed messaging platforms  —  Sixteen years after the launch of Google Talk, Google messaging is still a mess.  —  Google Talk, Google's first-ever instant messaging platform …
Joan E. Solsman / CNET:
YouTube says it has removed over 1M videos related to COVID misinformation since Feb. 2020 and removes 10M videos per quarter, most of which have <10 views  —  But the 1 million coronavirus-related takedowns since the start of the pandemic are difficult to put in context, because of YouTube's gigantic scale.
Sujeong Lim / Counterpoint Research:
Apple Watch active user base crossed 100M globally in Q2, as the smartwatch market grew 27% YoY and the sub-$100 segment grew 547% YoY  —  - The market grew a healthy 27% YoY, thanks to strong demand for sub-$100 smartwatches.  — Samsung and Garmin posted remarkable YoY growth even as Apple maintained its lead.
Ryan Weeks / The Block:
DJ 3LAU launches Royal, which lets users trade shares of song royalty rights as crypto tokens, with $16M in seed funding led by Founders Fund and Paradigm  —  Royal, a non-fungible token (NFT) investment platform focused on music, has announced a $16 million seed-stage fundraise.
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
After White House meeting, Google will spend $10B over five years and train 100K IT and data workers, Apple pledges supply chain security improvements, and more  —  - The White House hosted a cybersecurity summit with CEOs in sectors ranging from tech to insurance.
Insider:
In an abrupt reversal, OnlyFans suspends its October 1 policy change banning porn after securing “assurances” and aims to provide “a home for all creators”  —  - OnlyFans is reversing its recent decision to ban porn.  — It had planned to prohibit sexually explicit …
Reuters:
Sources: Berkshire Hathaway-backed Brazilian digital bank Nubank is seeking a valuation greater than $55.4B for its planned US IPO  —  Brazil's Nubank is seeking a valuation in its planned U.S. initial public offering that would push the eight-year-old fintech past the $55.4 billion value …
More: FinLedger
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Hopin, which develops software for hosting virtual events, has hired Amazon's former VP of Grocery Tech and Bezos “shadow” advisor Wei Gao to be COO  —  - Wei Gao, a former Amazon executive, is joining London-based online events start-up Hopin as its chief operating officer.
New York Times:
A look at China's evolving approach to state-sponsored hacking, which borrows from Russia and Iran and increasingly relies on private sector hackers  —  The state security ministry is recruiting from a vast pool of private-sector hackers who often have their own agendas and sometimes use …

Sponsor Posts

ElevenLabs:
ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs  —  You know us for voice.  Now meet ElevenAgents — featuring Expressive Mode, our most human-sounding AI voice technology in 70+ languages with ultra-low latency.  Hear it for yourself.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform  —  Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN.  That's the power of Intel Inside®
Zoho:
Build vs Buy Embedded Analytics: The Decision That Defines Your Product Roadmap  —  Every SaaS product team eventually hits the analytics wall.  Your customers want insights inside your app.  Your roadmap has no room to spare.
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

Great Chat:
Go touch some grass (but don't tweet about it)
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.
Lenny's Podcast:
An AI state of the union: We've passed the inflection point, dark factories are coming, and automation timelines | Simon Willison
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Access:
The future of AI might be on your finger
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Axiom's Carina Hong: Solving Math's Hardest Problems With AI, And AI's Problems With Math
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:
Iran, Oil, and the US
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ryan Roslansky: Turning AI Anxiety into Skills for the Future of Work
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 8:35 PM ET, August 26, 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

The Intercept:
Reuters: