Techmeme
January 31, 2021, 7:05 PM

Top News

Cat Ferguson / MIT Technology Review:
VAMS, a CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M to manage rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, has been abandoned by states due to bugs and problems  —  The CDC ordered software that was meant to manage the vaccine rollout.  Instead, it has been plagued by problems and abandoned by most states.
Dave Lee / Financial Times:
More than 2,000 police and fire departments in the US have now partnered with Amazon's Ring, with 1,189 new departments added over the past year  —  Controversial surveillance network has doubled in size in the country in the past year  —  More than 2,000 police and fire departments in the US …
Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
How one disgruntled person destroyed the online reputations of 145+ people, aided by “complaint sites” in the US and platforms like Google that rarely intervene  —  Outrageous lies destroyed Guy Babcock's online reputation.  When he went hunting for their source, what he discovered was worse than he could have imagined.
Kellen Browning / New York Times:
League of Legends teams in the US recruited 40+ superstar players from Asia since 2016, with an average salary of $460K for a player in a team's starting five  —  League of Legends teams in the U.S. lag behind their competitors in Asia, so they recruit the world's best players by offering huge salaries.
Corbin Davenport / Android Police:
Google has reinstated federated chat app Element on the Play Store after briefly pulling it over abusive content, which is now removed, on Element's servers  —  Element is a popular client for the federated chat protocol Matrix, and we highlighted it in our roundup of the best open-source alternatives …
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Canalys: a record 11.2M Chromebooks were shipped in Q4 2020, up 287% YoY, with Lenovo Chromebooks up 1,766%; in 2020, 30.7M Chromebooks were shipped, up 109%  —  COVID-19 has had a lot of negative effects on the market, but it's been great for the PC market as millions of people transitioned to working and learning from home.
Evelyn Douek / Lawfare:
Analysis of the first Oversight Board rulings, which in the long term may influence Facebook moderation rules more than the upcoming decision on Trump ban  —  After seemingly endless announcements heralding the arrival of the Facebook Oversight Board (FOB) over the past 18 months, the board has …
Maggie Miller / The Hill:
A look at the criticism in DC directed at CSET, a State Dept. bureau focused on cybersecurity and emerging technologies formed in the last days of Trump's admin  —  A newly established State Department bureau focused on cybersecurity and emerging technologies could give the Biden administration …
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
SetSail raises $26M Series A for its service that recommends when to pay salespeople, by monitoring the progress of sales across CRM, email, and other systems  —  SetSail wants to upend the way sales people get compensated by paying them throughout the sales cycle, rather than a single commission after the sale closes.
Under the Hood:
Robinhood explains why it placed restrictions on certain securities over the past week, says its clearinghouse-mandated deposit for equities increased tenfold  —  With the extraordinary market activity this week, and the temporary restrictions we put in place on certain securities …
John Herrman / New York Times:

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
Recruiters, be that zeroth candidate  —  Welcome again!  Earlier, we looked at how personality assessments are evaluation tools that help look at candidates beyond resumes.  Let's look at how to use …
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

Techmeme Ride Home:
How Apple Lost AI
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott on how AI can save the web, not destroy it
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Grit:
From Scaling Cisco to Seeding AI: John T. Chambers on Speed, Strategy, and Reinvention
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
Microsoft CPO: If you aren't prototyping with AI you're doing it wrong | Aparna Chennapragada
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.
Hard Fork:
Ed Helms Answers Your Hard Questions
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.
Great Chat:
Are VC jobs truly AI Proof? (Marc thinks so)
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:05 PM ET, January 31, 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

Zeyi Yang / Protocol:

Earlier Picks

Bloomberg:
Lara O'Reilly / Business Insider: