Techmeme
January 19, 2021, 10:15 PM

Top News

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Malwarebytes says it was hacked by group that breached SolarWinds, via Azure and Office 365 exploits, but attackers only accessed a subset of internal emails  —  Malwarebytes becomes fourth major security firm targeted by attackers after Microsoft, FireEye, and CrowdStrike.
Zoë Bernard / The Information:
Sources: Andreessen Horowitz to launch an opinion section on its website that will publish articles related to technology and business from outside contributors  —  Silicon Valley investment firm Andreessen Horowitz, which once courted attention from the news media, is ramping up its own media efforts.
Eric Newcomer / Newcomer:
A look at a16z's communication efforts over the years, as the firm expands its own media operations and has largely stopped cooperating with reporters  —  Why media whisperer Margit Wennmachers is going direct.  —  Benedict Evans, Andreessen Horowitz's former in-house analyst …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Brave becomes the first major browser to natively support IPFS protocol, useful for accessing censored content; Wikipedia and other sites offer IPFS versions  —  Brave users will now be able to seamlessly access ipfs:// links.  —  With the release of Brave 1.19 today …
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Netflix reports Q4 revenue of $6.64B vs. $6.63B est., up 21.5% YoY, global streaming paid memberships 203.7M, up 8.5M vs. 6.5M est.; stock up 12%+ after hours  —  - Netflix reported fourth quarter 2020 earnings Tuesday that beat analyst expectations on revenue and net subscriber additions but fell below EPS estimates.
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Intel is in more danger than its profits suggest and should spin off its manufacturing business unless the US can subsidize it, ideally with purchase guarantees  —  One of the first Articles on Stratechery, written on the occasion of Intel appointing a new CEO, was, in retrospect, overly optimistic.
The Markup:
Data from Facebook users: 12 political groups were in the top 100 recommended in Jan.; FB said it would not recommend “political content or social issue groups”  —  According to Citizen Browser data, the platform especially peppered Trump voters with political grouprecommendations
Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios:
Biden picks former CFTC chairman Gary Gensler, who taught courses on cryptocurrencies and blockchain at MIT, to head the SEC  —  Gary Gensler's nomination to head the U.S. Securities and Exchange is welcome news for the cryptocurrency industry given his ongoing and deep interest in the technology.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
FireEye releases a free tool that audits networks to determine whether certain techniques, known to be employed by SolarWinds hackers, were used  —  New Azure AD Investigator is now available via GitHub.  —  Cybersecurity firm FireEye has released today a report detailing the techniques used …
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A with Instagram head Adam Mosseri on keeping users safe at scale, content moderation, Facebook's actions against Trump, future regulation, Reels, and more  —  Adam Mosseri has a broad view of Facebook, its capabilities, and its challenges.  And Facebook has a lot of challenges right now …
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch:
Electric autonomous vehicle startup Cruise raises $2B at a $30B valuation from Microsoft, GM, Honda, and others  —  Cruise has raised $2 billion in a new equity round that has pushed its valuation up to $30 billion and delivered Microsoft as an investor and partner.
Meagan Simpson / BetaKit:
South Korean search engine company Naver Corp. has acquired online self-publishing platform Wattpad for an estimated ~$600M  —  Wattpad is set to be acquired by South Korean internet company Naver Corp. for an estimated $754 million CAD ($600 million USD).  —  Naver announced the deal early before market open in South Korea.
Douglas Soltys / BetaKit:
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon 870 with a similar design to the 865 and 865 Plus, clocked at 3.2GHz, making it about 10% faster than the 865  —  A slightly faster refresh of last year's Snapdragon flagship  —  Qualcomm has announced a new mobile phone processor: the Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
India asks WhatsApp to withdraw the planned change to its privacy policy over “grave concerns” and questions why users in the EU are exempt from it  —  India has asked WhatsApp to withdraw the planned change to its privacy policy, posing a new headache to Facebook-owned service …
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Citrix acquires SaaS collaborative work management service Wrike for $2.25B in cash  —  Citrix has confirmed reports from earlier this week that it is buying enterprise-focused work management platform Wrike, in an all-cash deal worth $2.25 billion.  —  Founded in 2006, San Jose-based Wrike …
Rita Liao / TechCrunch:
WeChat says it facilitated ~$250B in annual transactions through its third-party “mini programs”, double the value of transactions in 2019  —  WeChat continues to advance its shopping ambitions as the social networking app turns 10 years old.  The Chinese messenger facilitated …

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Meet Airtable ProductCentral  —  The unified solution for managing your entire product development process in the AI era.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
Zoho Forms for successful Black Friday sales  —  Black Friday is a retail frenzy that can significantly impact your bottom line.  To make the most of this shopping bonanza, you need a strategy that not only attracts customers …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Tue 11/05 - Apple: Maybe Smartglasses Are The Way To Go
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:15 PM ET, January 19, 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

Sara Fischer / Axios:
Reuters:

Earlier Picks

Varsha Bansal / Rest of World: