Techmeme
March 2, 2022, 6:45 PM

Top News

Ethan Diamond / Bandcamp Updates:
Epic Games acquires Bandcamp, which will continue operating as a standalone marketplace and music community; Bandcamp has paid nearly $1B to artists and labels  —  I'm excited to announce that Bandcamp is joining Epic Games, who you may know as the makers of Fortnite and Unreal Engine, and champions for a fair and open Internet.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple announces a digital-only event dubbed “Peek performance” will be held on March 8 at 10am PT; a 5G iPhone SE, revamped iPad Air, and new Macs are expected  —  Apple today announced that it will be holding its first event of 2022 on Tuesday, March 8 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific …
Kyle Orland / Ars Technica:
Ukrainian vice PM calls for game companies to ban all Russian and Belarusian accounts during the invasion, calling on Sony, Ubisoft, Microsoft, and others  —  Vice PM says move “will motivate the citizens of Russia” to rise up in protest.  —  Mykhailo Fedorov, the vice prime minister …
Washington Post:
A profile of Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's youngest cabinet minister, who is using his Twitter account to pressure tech giants to shut down Russian propaganda  —  Six months ago, Mykhailo Fedorov, one of Ukraine's deputy prime ministers, made a pilgrimage to Silicon Valley to discuss his country's digital transformation.
Paresh Dave / Reuters:
Google will remove RT News and Sputnik News from the Play Store, after removing Russian state outlets from its news features, following a similar move by Apple  —  Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google said on Tuesday that it has blocked mobile apps connected to RT and Sputnik from its Play store …
Mark Scott / Politico:
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon plans to close 68 brick-and-mortar retail locations across the US and the UK, including all of its Amazon Books, 4-star, and Pop Up stores  —  - Amazon plans to close all locations of its Pop Up, Books and 4-star stores, the company confirmed to CNBC.
Paul Alcorn / Tom's Hardware:
Intel, AMD, Arm, TSMC, Samsung, and others introduce the Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) consortium to standardize die-to-die interconnects  —  A broad range of blue-chip industry promoters, like Intel, AMD, Arm, TSMC, and Samsung, among others, introduced the new Universal …
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Andrew Hutchinson / Social Media Today:
Meta releases its Widely Viewed Content report for Q4, showing the most viewed Facebook Page was removed for violating policies; Meta would not reveal its name  —  Safe to say that Meta's efforts to refute the idea that Facebook amplifies divisive political content are not going exactly as it would have hoped.
Mariella Moon / Engadget:
The US CPSC and Fitbit recall Fitbit Ionic smartwatches after receiving 118 reports of burn injuries; Fitbit sold ~1M units in the US and 693K internationally  —  Fitbit has issued a voluntary recall for Ionic smartwatches that it manufactured and sold from 2017 through 2020.
Stephen Harrison / Slate:
How Russia's war with Ukraine is playing out on Wikipedia; Russian Wikipedia editors decided to call an invasion what it is, rejecting the Kremlin's narrative  —  On Thursday, President Vladimir Putin issued the order for Russian forces to invade Ukraine.  Since then, Russians …
Vikas SN / Moneycontrol:
Netflix acquires Finnish mobile game developer Next Games for ~$72M; the studio specializes in games based on entertainment franchises, such as Stranger Things  —  Next Games had released ‘Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales’, a role-playing game based on the streaming giant's hit 80s horror drama series in October last year.
Ciaran Martin / Lawfare:
An in-depth look at Russia's offensive cyber capabilities, their potential use in Ukraine, the limitations of cyber power, and implications for the West  —  It turns out that the next war was not fought in cyberspace after all.  Or at least the start of it has not been.
Dan Primack / Axios:
Nine days after the launch of Truth Social, valued at $3.5B+, Trump has not posted, the app has fallen to #57 in US App Store, and most remain on the waitlist  —  Former President Trump is blowing the launch of his new social media company, via a series of unforced errors.
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Melbourne-based neobank Zeller, which offers fintech tools for SMBs, raises a A$100M Series B led by Headline, bringing its valuation to A$1B+  —  Zeller, the Australian neobank for SMBs, has raised a $100 million AUD Series B (about $72.7 million USD), doubling its valuation to more than $1 billion AUD (about $727 million USD).

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Washington Post:
Chris Stokel-Walker / Wired: