Techmeme
April 12, 2022, 5:40 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple has delayed adding a blood pressure monitor to Apple Watch until 2024, possibly 2025, after difficulties with accuracy during testing  —  Apple Inc.'s plan to add a highly anticipated blood-pressure monitor to its smartwatch has hit some snags and the technology isn't expected …
Matt Burgess / Wired:
DuckDuckGo launches its privacy-focused browser on macOS in beta through a private waiting list  —  DuckDuckGo started out as a private search engine.  Now its web browser is debuting on Macs to rival Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Brave.  —  When Google launched Chrome back in 2008, it changed the web overnight.
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
A profile of a16z VC Chris Dixon, who made early bets on crypto startups like Coinbase; sources: a16z plans to fold its crypto funds back into its central funds  —  The Andreessen Horowitz partner is the new no. 1 on Forbes' 21st annual Midas List of top venture investors, thanks to savvy bets on tokens …
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Ionut Ilascu / BleepingComputer:
RaidForums, used by Lapsus$, Babuk, and other extortion gangs, is seized in a US-led international operation; Europol says the hacking forum had 500K+ users  —  The RaidForums hacker forum, used mainly for trading and selling stolen databases, has been shut down and its domain seized …
Zack Seward / CoinDesk:
Circle, which maintains the USDC stablecoin, raises $400M from BlackRock, Fidelity, and others, after raising $440M in May 2021  —  BlackRock and Fidelity headlined the stablecoin issuer's latest funding round, which follows a $440 million raise from last May.
Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Sources: two weeks after the launch of CNN+, the premium streaming service has garnered under 10K DAUs, amid reports that CNN has spent ~$300M on the effort  —  - Fewer than 10,000 people are using CNN+ on a daily basis two weeks into its existence, sources said.
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Apple updates iMovie for iOS and iPadOS with Magic Movie, for automatic movie creation from clips and photos, and storyboards for a template-guided approach  —  Apple is releasing an iMovie update today for iOS and iPadOS. iMovie 3.0 introduces two new major features — storyboards and Magic Movie.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
TikTok is rolling out Effect House, which lets creators make AR effects that others can use in videos, to all users after a closed beta test last fall  —  Last August, TechCrunch noted TikTok was working to build its own augmented reality (AR) development platform called Effect House …
Bhanvi Satija / Reuters:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify rebrands companion app Spotify Greenroom as Spotify Live and integrates its live audio capabilities in the main app minus the interactive features  —  As an earlier report had suggested, Spotify today announced it will integrate the live audio capabilities from its companion app …
Jill R Shah / Bloomberg:
Filing: Meta spent $26.8M on Mark Zuckerberg's security in 2021, up 6% from 2020, far above other execs, such as Sundar Pichai ($4.3M) and Jeff Bezos ($1.6M)  —  The cost of keeping Mark Zuckerberg safe keeps going up for Meta Platforms Inc., far outstripping what similar technology companies with high-profile executives are spending.
Akshat Rathi / Bloomberg:
A look at Stripe's $925M Frontier initiative, which funds carbon-removal startups and has received funding from Alphabet, Shopify, Meta, and others  —  Some of the world's largest companies will spend $925 million buying offsets from startups that remove carbon dioxide from the air.
Olga Kharif / Bloomberg:
Ethereum developers launch the so-called mainnet shadow fork, a key stress test ahead of the proof-of-stake Merge upgrade, expected to reduce energy use by ~99%  —  Ethereum's network is inching closer toward its much-anticipated software upgrade known as the Merge, having just entered a key testing step.
Nikkei Asia:
Major iPhone manufacturer Pegatron, Mac manufacturer Quanta, and iPad maker Compal suspend factory operations near Shanghai amid strict COVID-19 measures  —  TAIPEI — Three key Apple suppliers have suspended production in and near Shanghai as strict COVID-19 lockdown measures show signs …
Eric Migicovsky:
On the 10th anniversary of smart watch maker Pebble's Kickstarter launch, its founder says Pebble failed as it tried to expand beyond a hacker user base  —  I've been giving a talk on the importance of learning from failure to every YC batch for last few years.  I wrote this post in 2017 but never published it.
Andi Ortiz / The Wrap:
Last Week Tonight's John Oliver weighed in on data brokers, showing how easy it was to target members of Congress with ads after obtaining their personal info  —  John Oliver escalated his typical shenanigans on Sunday night's episode of “Last Week Tonight,” going from poking fun at politicians to outright blackmailing them.
Eli Tan / CoinDesk:
Coinbase will produce a movie trilogy based on the Bored Ape Yacht Club, set to premiere at NFT.NYC in June; BAYC owners can submit their apes for consideration  —  The trio of films will tie into the launch of Coinbase's long-awaited NFT marketplace.  —  The Bored Ape Yacht Club is getting …

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Deep analysis for deep questions  —  Introducing Superagent.  A new research product from Airtable: Subagents deeply interrogate your topic and turn it into boardroom-ready reports, slides, docs, or websites.
Clay:
Turn any GTM idea into reality  —  Clay helps GTM teams combine AI agents, enrichment, and intent data to move faster and turn insights into action.
Zoho:
Why navigation breaks down in unified software—and how QuickNav fixes it  —  In unified software environments, navigation stops being a convenience issue and becomes a structural one.When work spans CRM records …
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

Channels with Peter Kafka:
Netflix Walks, Paramount Wins, and the Ellisons Take Hollywood
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.
Hard Fork:
Is A.I. Eating the Labor Market? + The Latest on the Pentagon, OpenClaw and Alpha School
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.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Valar Atomics' Isaiah Taylor: Solving AI's Energy Crisis With Nuclear 'Gigasites'
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.
Access:
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on surviving the AI slop-pocalypse
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:
AI is critical for humanity's survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
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 5:40 PM ET, April 12, 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

Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Teddy Amenabar / Washington Post:
Wall Street Journal:
Dina Bass / Bloomberg: