Techmeme
January 19, 2021, 11:20 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.
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.
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
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.
Alexandra Alper / Reuters:
Trump signs an executive order that seeks to thwart foreign use of cloud computing products or services for malicious cyber operations against the US  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Outgoing President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at thwarting foreign use of cloud computing products …
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 …
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.
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 …
Tracy Qu / South China Morning Post:
ByteDance says it has suspended development of its own smartphone under Smartisan, and will fold Smartisan's R&D team into ByteDance's educational hardware unit  —  Entrepreneur Luo Yonghao, founder of Smartisan, once boasted of surpassing Apple's innovation in smartphones and other devices By 2019 …
Jennifer Smith / Wall Street Journal:
Aurora partners with truck maker PACCAR to develop self-driving big rig trucks “in the next several years”, as it closes the deal for Uber's self-driving unit  —  The agreement is the latest between a traditional truck manufacturer and an automation technology firm
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 …
Douglas Soltys / BetaKit:
Bold Commerce, which offers tools for e-commerce including checkout, subscriptions, and more, raises $27M Series B led by OMERS Ventures  —  Once known only as Shopify's largest app developer, Winnipeg-based Bold Commerce is hoping a $35 million CAD ($27 million USD) Series B round will help …

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
Celebrate and collaborate this holiday season with Zoho Cliq  —  The holiday season is a time for celebration, relaxation, and reflection.  While some people are busy wrapping presents for their loved ones …
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
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.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Mon. 12/23 - The Revenge Of Google Glass?
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 11:20 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