Techmeme
April 7, 2022, 2:55 PM

Top News

Paul Vigna / Wall Street Journal:
One-click checkout service Bolt acquires crypto payments startup Wyre, sources say for around $1.5B, which would make it the largest non-SPAC crypto merger yet  —  Deal extends crypto's hot M&A market following record deal activity in 2021  —  Bolt Financial Inc., a payments-focused financial …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Coinbase adds support for the popular UPI payment method in India, making the cryptocurrency exchange functional in the world's second-largest internet market  —  Coinbase is adding support for the popular UPI payment instrument in India, making its eponymous cryptocurrency exchange functional …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
India's payments body refuses to acknowledge Coinbase's India launch, saying it is not aware of any cryptocurrency exchange using the UPI payments instrument  —  The National Payments Corporation of India, the governing body that oversees UPI in the country, said in a statement on Thursday evening …
More: CoinDeskTweets: @refsrc
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google releases “multisearch” for Lens, letting users ask questions about photos and screenshots, in beta for US users in English on Android and iOS  —  One of the most interesting announcements at Google's Search-focused keynote in September was a big upgrade to Lens that lets you take a photo and ask questions about it.
Alyse Stanley / Washington Post:
Epic Games and Lego partner to “shape the future of the metaverse” by building a digital experience where children can play safely online, but offer few details  —  Epic Games has already outlined ambitious plans for the metaverse and Thursday the “Fortnite” maker announced it intends to build part of it with Legos.
CoinDesk:
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen gives her first speech on digital assets, saying a CBDC “would require years of development, not months”, and more  —  The U.S. official addressed CBDCs, stablecoins and regulations.  —  A digital dollar could become a “trusted money comparable …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Activision Blizzard will convert all its 1,100 temporary and contingent QA workers to full-time employees on July 1 and raise the minimum hourly rate to $20  —  Nearly 1,100 temp game testers are getting full-time jobs with benefits  —  Activision Blizzard has just announced that all temporary …
Andrew Hayward / Decrypt:
OpenSea adds Solana NFT trading support in beta with limited coverage of just 165 collections; a marketplace search shows 865K NFTs minted on Solana  —  At long last, Solana support is finally live on OpenSea—in beta mode.  —  In brief  — Solana NFTs have been added to OpenSea, the largest overall NFT marketplace.
Nitasha Tiku / Washington Post:
Gwyneth Paltrow, Mila Kunis, and other celebrities are pushing women to invest in NFTs, which critics say is a self-serving feminism centered on white women  —  Gwyneth Paltrow and Mila Kunis joined a Zoom in January to encourage 5,000 women in the audience to break into the male-dominated world of crypto.
Naomi Nix / Washington Post:
Meta disrupts covert influence operations by Belarus- and Russia-linked actors targeting Ukrainians, like hacking Ukrainian military staff's Facebook accounts  —  Facebook said Thursday it disrupted several covert influence operations targeting Ukrainians, as the company has intensified …
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway discloses the purchase of nearly 121M shares of HP, worth ~$4.2B, for an 11.4% stake; HP's stock is up 15%+  —  Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) disclosed on Wednesday that it has purchased nearly 121 million shares of HP Inc (HPQ.N), the latest in a series …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
OpenPhone, which provides SMBs with a business phone line through its mobile app, raises a $40M Series B led by Tiger Global, bringing its total funding to $56M  —  Pam answering the phone at Dunder Mifflin become one of the most iconic refrains of life at The Office, and it's really no wonder that it did …
More: FinSMEs
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
Song Jung-a / Financial Times:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google plans to hide and block Play Store apps that don't target an Android API within two years of the latest major Android release, starting on November 1  —  Google is preparing to clear its Play Store of outdated apps.  The company warned Android app developers that starting on November 1 …
Joseph Menn / Washington Post:
Mandiant and CrowdStrike partner to help customers detect, investigate, and respond to threats; Mandiant will begin deploying CrowdStrike's protection tools  —  Two of the most prominent U.S. cybersecurity companies have struck a deal to work more closely together, extending a trend …
Matt Burgess / Wired:
New data-sharing proposals in Europe push for expanding retrospective facial recognition and letting police forces across the EU link their photo databases  —  Lawmakers advance proposals to let police forces across the EU link their photo databases—which include millions of pictures of people's faces.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Transform ML Experimentation with Tangle  —  Save months of compute time with Tangle, built by Shopify.  Try this open-source platform to simplify ML workflows, ensure reproducibility, and seamlessly share with collaborators.
Zoho:
Contract Signed.  Project Ready.  Tasks Created.  —  Every project begins with a promise; a contract that outlines the deliverables, the timelines, and the terms.  But for most businesses …
Bitrix24:
Bitrix24 powers the next generation of high-performing businesses  —  Chat, projects, CRM, and automation — all in one place.  Replace dozens of tools so your team moves faster, collaborates smarter, and grows effortlessly.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Access:
Is Roblox making the internet better or worse? We asked the CEO
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Lenny's Podcast:
Why LinkedIn is turning PMs into AI-powered "full stack builders" | Tomer Cohen (LinkedIn CPO)
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.
Great Chat:
Code red: our favorite tech rivalries
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
How An AI Model Learned To Be Bad — With Evan Hubinger And Monte MacDiarmid
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
PBS Lost a Billion Dollars. Now what? With CEO Paula Kerger
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:55 PM ET, April 7, 2022.

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:
Foreign Affairs:

Earlier Picks

Wall Street Journal:
Washington Post:
Casey Newton / Platformer: