Techmeme
September 15, 2021, 2:05 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Internal documents: Facebook's own research found that a 2018 change to encourage positive interactions had the opposite effect; Zuckerberg resisted any fixes  —  Internal memos show how a big 2018 change rewarded outrage and that CEO Mark Zuckerberg resisted proposed fixes
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft will now let users access accounts without a password by using Microsoft Authenticator, Windows Hello, a security key, or a verification code  —  You can delete your Microsoft account password  —  Microsoft now lets you remove passwords from Microsoft accounts to embrace a passwordless future.
Ryan Weeks / The Block:
NFT marketplace OpenSea acknowledges that its head of product, Nate Chastain, purchased NFTs he knew were going to be displayed prominently  —  Quick Take  — The marketplace has acknowledged that its head of product Nate Chastain purchased NFTs that he knew were going to be displayed prominently.
Ash Parrish / The Verge:
After being sued by the state of California, Activision Blizzard is sued by a group representing employees, alleging it tried to prevent them from organizing  —  Organized by CODE-CWA, the suit claims Activision Blizzard engaged in coercive and intimidating behavior
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
DOJ court documents: three former US intel operatives, who worked as mercenary hackers for the UAE, face charges of conspiring to violate hacking laws  —  The US Department of Justice has fined three former NSA employees who worked as hackers-for-hire for a United Arab Emirates cybersecurity company.
BBC:
Google's Grace Hopper transatlantic communications cable, measuring 4,350 miles and operational in 2022, has reached Bude in the UK and Bilbao in Spain  —  A new “massive” undersea transatlantic communications cable has been brought ashore on a beach in Cornwall.
Dylan Patel / SemiAnalysis:
Apple, in a first, reported no CPU gains for the A15, likely because of the engineer exodus to companies like Nuvia and Rivos  —  Apple has been long hailed for having the best CPU cores for consumer workloads for years.  They have by far the highest performance per clock and efficiency driven …
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
Apple's iPhone 13 and 13 Pro are the first to support dual eSIM, expanding on support for eSIM and regular SIM in previous iPhones  —  Apple introduced eSIM support on iPhone with iPhone XR and iPhone XS in 2018.  However, while you can use a regular SIM and an eSIM simultaneously …
Max Chafkin / Bloomberg:
Book excerpt examines Peter Thiel's support for Trump and partnership with Steve Bannon, libertarian ideology, battles with the IRS, and founding of Palantir  —  In an exclusive excerpt from The Contrarian, a new biography, the disruption-preaching power broker is revealed …
Sam Byford / The Verge:
Keith Broni / Emojipedia:
Unicode Consortium launches version 14.0 with 112 new emoji, including multiracial handshake, melting face, saluting face, and heart hands  —  Today the latest emoji list will be released by the Unicode Consortium, with additions including Biting Lip, Troll, Saluting Face …
Issie Lapowsky / Protocol:
SEC charges App Annie with securities fraud, accusing it of “engaging in deceptive practices” and misrepresenting its data; App Annie will pay a $10M settlement  —  The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Tuesday that it's charging App Annie, the mobile app data provider …
Alex Engler / Tech Policy Press:
Review finds at least 700 US colleges use enrollment algorithms that intentionally reduce scholarships, leading to higher debt and lower college completion  —  As colleges look for any advantage in the fierce competition to enroll students, hundreds of institutions have turned to algorithms …
The Verge:
Nintendo adds Bluetooth audio support to the Switch, which limits the device to two wireless controllers when in use and does not support microphones  —  Out of the blue(tooth)  —  Nintendo has surprise-announced that Bluetooth audio support has come to the Switch through a software update.
Turner Wright / Cointelegraph:
Chainalysis: Africa's crypto market grew 1,200%+ in value between July 2020 and June 2021 to reach $105.6B; retail-sized transfers made up 7%+ of overall volume  —  P2P platforms, the need for remittances to circumvent restrictions from banks, and putting savings into crypto as a means …
Sanjana Shivdas / Reuters:
Report: Uber CTO Sukumar Rathnam has resigned after a year in the position amid tensions with Uber CPO Sundeep Jain  —  Uber (UBER.N) Chief Technology Officer Sukumar Rathnam is stepping down as the company's head of engineering, Business Insider reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Source: InsiderTweets: @cityofthetown

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
Do you need a Zoho Partner?  Here's why working with one can benefit you.  —  Zoho offers over 60 applications, each one built for a unique use case.  From sales and marketing to finance, HR, and customer support …
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 Talk Show With John Gruber:
'What's in Louie's Wallet', With Louie Mantia
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Big Technology Podcast:
Leopold Blows Up, OpenAI Drastically Cuts Prices, Microsoft's Best Day
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.
Hard Fork:
Open Model Wars + Claire Stapleton's Dishy Google Memoir + Substack's Slop Fight
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Great Chat:
Tech's short-term era
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.
Access:
Meet the most AI-pilled CEO on Earth
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
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 2:05 PM ET, September 15, 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

Ax Sharma / Ars Technica:
Andrew Hayward / Decrypt: