Techmeme
September 21, 2021, 5:30 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: the SEC has launched an investigation into Activision Blizzard, including how it handled employees' allegations of sexual misconduct and discrimination  —  Agency has issued subpoena to videogame company and several executives including CEO Bobby Kotick
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Kuo: an iPhone SE with 5G is coming in H1 2022; a cheaper 6.7" iPhone and two high-end models with a punch-hole display and 48MP wide camera are due in H2 2022  —  Following last week's release of the iPhone 13 lineup, reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is out with new expectations for what to expect from the iPhone 14.
José Adorno / 9to5Mac:
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Review of iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, which are now available: focus modes are great, Safari update is an acquired taste, and iOS' Dark Sky-style Weather is excellent  —  Apple's latest updates lay good groundwork, but don't add many big new features  —  iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 are strange updates.
Federico Viticci / MacStories:
In-depth iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 review: many quality-of-life updates, especially to core apps, but few bold new features and no big iPad productivity leaps  —  In my career as an iOS reviewer, I don't think I've ever seen a response as universally positive and enthusiastic as the general public's reception of iOS 14 last year.
Lisa Richwine / Reuters:
Netflix launches a free plan in Kenya with a quarter of the content from its paid plans, available only on Android phones  —  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Netflix Inc on Monday began offering a free mobile plan with about one-quarter of its TV shows and movies in Kenya, a strategy aimed …
Benjamin Bain / Bloomberg:
Coinbase quietly updates its blog to say it is tabling the launch of Lend, a product intended to pay users interest for lending out tokens, after SEC pressure  —  - Company faced threat by agency to sue if it pursued plan  — SEC has taken a tougher line on crypto under Gary Gensler
Ryan Weeks / The Block:
Paris-based Sorare, a soccer-focused NFT trading platform, raises $680M Series B led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 at a $4.3B valuation  —  Quick Take  — The fundraise values the Paris-based NFT startup at $4.3 billion.  — It comes off a period of rapid growth for Sorare, which now boasts 600,000 registered users.
Pew Research Center:
Survey: 47% of US Facebook users regularly get news on the platform, down from 54% in 2020; 29% of US TikTok users regularly get news from the app, up from 22%  —  More than half of Twitter user get news on the site regularly  —  To better examine the ways Americans get news in a digital age …
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Amazon announces its next hardware and services event will be on September 28 at 9am PT  —  New Echo devices could be coming soon  —  Amazon has officially announced the date for its big fall hardware event: it'll take place on Tuesday, September 28th at 12PM ET / 9AM PT. As always …
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
Europol, alongside Italian and Spanish police, arrest 106 people accused of working for the Italian Mafia and laundering over €10M made through cybercrimes  —  European police accused several people of SIM swapping, phishing, and hacking in support of Italian organized crime.
Jeran Wittenstein / Bloomberg:
Tech stocks drop amid broader market selloff, similar to Sept. 2020's slump; Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet, and Microsoft lost $500B+ in value since Sept. 7  —  - Echoes a 3-week drop a year ago as stocks gave back gains  — Stocks bounced back, but now stung by China slowdown worries
Alexandra Garrett / CNET:
DoorDash will now deliver alcoholic beverages to customers in 20 US states and DC, Canada, and Australia  —  The option for alcohol delivery will also be available in Canada and Australia. … The DoorDash delivery app will now spirit wine, beer and other alcoholic beverages to customers.

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.
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 Notebook: The free iPad note-taking app every student needs  —  If you're a student with an iPad, you already have one of the best note-taking devices in your hands.  The question is, does your app actually do it justice?
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:
'A Scam Held Together With Patriotism and Golden Paint', With Quinn Nelson
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.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Abridge's Shiv Rao: The Doctor Founder Taking On Microsoft In Healthcare AI
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's Bots Break Containment and Hack Hugging Face Autonomously — With Alex Stamos
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:
Too big to laugh: how tech lost its sense of humor
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Substack Wants To Become A Social Network; Beehiiv Wants To Stay Invisible
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
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 5:30 AM ET, September 21, 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

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Michael Kozlowski / Good e-Reader:
Kim Lyons / The Verge: