Techmeme
January 28, 2021, 2:40 PM

Top News

Maggie Fitzgerald / CNBC:
Jordan Pearson / VICE:
According to a pop-up on Robinhood's app homepage, 56% of its users own at least some GameStop stock  —  With the market in chaos, even Robinhood has now turned on retail investors pumping dark horse stocks.  —  Jordan Pearson  —  Robinhood, the fee-free investment app that has helped Redditors …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
r/WallStreetBets was made private by moderators for about an hour, but is back online; Discord banned r/WallStreetBets' server, claiming hate speech violations  —  It went dark for nearly an hour  —  The r/WallStreetBets subreddit's own moderators made it private for a little less than an hour …
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
The Information:
Sources: Facebook is preparing an antitrust lawsuit against Apple for forcing developers to abide by App Store rules that Apple's own apps don't have to follow  —  A long-simmering public dispute between Facebook and Apple has neared a boiling point.  With the aid of outside legal counsel …
Michael Potuck / 9to5Mac:
Tim Cook tells EU data protection conference that valuing engagement over privacy leads to “polarization” and “violence” and such businesses need reform  —  Speaking at the EU data protection conference CPDP today, Tim Cook gave the opening keynote with his talk entitled …
Megan Graham / CNBC:
Dylan Byers / NBC News:
Facebook's Oversight Board issues first-ever rulings, which Facebook said it will abide by, overturning four out of the five cases it reviewed  —  Facebook's Oversight Board on Thursday issued its first round of decisions, overturning several of the company's decisions to remove posts …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Facebook adds opt-in biometric fingerprint, face, or iris scan authentication for WhatsApp on desktop or web  —  WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned popular messaging app with more than 2 billion users, has been getting a lot of heat and losing users in recent weeks after announcing (and then delaying) changes to how it uses your data.
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
IDC says Apple has shipped 90.1M iPhones in Q1, the largest number of shipments in a single quarter since IDC started tracking smartphones  —  - The iPhone is booming: Sales were up 17% year-over-year to a whopping $65.6 billion in a single quarter.  — Research firm IDC estimates …
Apple:
TechCrunch:
Apple says its App Tracking Transparency feature, which will be enabled by default, will roll out with iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and tvOS 14 updates in early spring  —  Apple has shared a few more details about its much-discussed privacy changes in iOS 14.  The company first announced at WWDC …
Danny Palmer / ZDNet:
Europol, the FBI, and other law enforcement agencies worldwide have seized control of malware botnet Emotet's infrastructure and disrupted it from the inside  —  Europol and FBI among agencies that have taken control of the botnet infrastructure used by cyber criminals behind some of the most prolific malware and ransomware attacks.
Bijan Stephen / The Verge:
YouTube is testing the ability to make short clips, from 5 to 60 seconds, of livestreams or videos, starting today on desktop and Android devices  —  Another standard live-streaming feature makes its way over to the online video giant  —  YouTube is introducing clipping …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: WeWork is in talks to merge with a SPAC at a valuation of around $10B, more than a year after its high-profile failure to launch an IPO  —  A deal could value the company at some $10 billion  —  WeWork is in talks to combine with a special-purpose acquisition company …
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
Gowalla, now resurrected as a social AR startup, raises a $4M seed round co-led by Google's venture arm GV and Spark Capital  —  The newly resurrected Gowalla wants to realize its mobile dreams from the early-aughts in an augmented reality world, and they've raised some new funding to make it happen.
Michael McSweeney / The Block:
Coinbase officially announces its intent to become a public company via direct listing  —  Coinbase has made official its plan to go public by way of a direct listing, according to a blog post released Thursday by the U.S.-based crypto exchange.  —  “Coinbase Global, Inc. today announced …
Bloomberg:
SoftBank says it will invest $100M in Miami-based tech companies; PitchBook says the region attracted $1.06B in venture investment last year  —  SoftBank Group Corp. committed $100 million in funding for companies in the Miami area, bolstering a beach-side metropolis that has been aggressively courting …
Facebook:
Facebook reports Q4: $28.1B revenue, up 33% YoY, 1.84B DAUs, up 11% YoY, 2.6B people used a Facebook service daily, up 15% YoY; headcount up 30% YoY to 58,604  —  Facebook, Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) today reported financial results for the quarter and full year ended December 31, 2020.

Sponsor Posts

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:
How you can grow your business with Zoho One  —  Zoho One is a comprehensive business suite, giving businesses the scalability, stability, security, and features they need for smooth operations.
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 11/14 - The FBI (!) Investigating Polymarket
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 2:40 PM ET, January 28, 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

Earlier Picks

Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC: