Techmeme
February 5, 2021, 1:45 PM

Top News

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Google has patched an actively exploited zero-day vulnerability in its Chrome 88 update  —  Google Chrome 88.0.4324.150 released with a fix.  Users advised to update.  —  Google has released today version 88.0.4324.150 of the Chrome browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Megan Graham / CNBC:
Snap says Apple's changes to IDFA will interrupt demand; Unity says IDFA changes will affect how mobile game developers “optimize lifetime customer value”  —  - Snap and Unity Software, which reported fourth quarter earnings after the bell Thursday, both warned of the upcoming impact …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Ben Gilbert / Insider:
Mark Zuckerberg made a surprise appearance on Clubhouse on Thursday, discussing VR, AR, Facebook's Reality Labs group, and remote work  —  - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared on a Clubhouse talk show on Thursday evening.  — Zuckerberg appeared on The Good Times Show, a talk show on the buzzy new social networking app.
Ashwin Manikandan / The Economic Times:
PayPal says it will wind down its domestic payment operations in India by April 1 and focus on its existing cross-border trade business  —  Mumbai: PayPal Inc. will wind down its payment operations in India this year, a spokesperson said on the condition of anonymity.
Bloomberg:
Shares of Kuaishou jumped 161% in its Hong Kong debut, valuing the company at $159B, after the main rival of ByteDance in China raised $5.4B in an IPO  —  - Tencent-backed short-video startup raised $5.4 billion in IPO  — Debut performance is second best globally after Alibaba.com
Michelle Chan / Nikkei Asia:
Users in mainland China are flocking to Clubhouse, a rare space outside the country's firewall where they can speak freely with people from Hong Kong and Taiwan  —  Audio-based social-media platform becomes free-speech haven for mainland users  —  The Clubhouse app had two million users globally as of Jan. 24.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget:
Google says Pixel users will be able to use their phone cameras to measure pulse and breath rates through the Google Fit app, starting next month  —  Like many of us, Google is getting more interested in our health.  The company is announcing today new features that will allow …
Emily Birnbaum / Protocol:
Democratic senators' SAFE TECH Act will strip Section 230 immunity for any ads, and posts violating civil rights, antitrust, cyberstalking, human rights laws  —  Three top Democratic senators added to the stack of proposed Section 230 reforms Friday, introducing their own bill …
Konrad Krasuski / Bloomberg:
Huuuge raises $445M in its IPO, valuing the developer of mobile casino games at $1.1B and making it the second-biggest studio listed in Warsaw after CD Projekt  —  - CD Projekt's Cyberpunk glitches didn't dent investor sentiment  — Company to be Warsaw's second-largest listed gaming studio
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Snap says its TikTok competitor Spotlight had 100M MAUs in January, two months after its launch, and receives an average of 175K video submissions per day  —  A surprisingly successful debut  —  Snap says its TikTok competitor, Spotlight, had 100 million users in January 2021, just two months after it launched.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google starts rolling out Google News Showcase in Australia, paying local and regional publishers, amid an ongoing dispute over Australia's proposed media rules  —  Google has a $1 billion plan to pay publishers for content that appears in a cross-service “News Showcase” product.
Hamish McKenzie / Substack Blog:
Substack co-founder says Facebook and Twitter getting into paid newsletters is a positive thing for writers and the media ecosystem, implores them to go all in  —  When Twitter announced that it had acquired the email newsletter provider Revue to create a Substack competitor, I tweeted a smartass response:
Alex Kantrowitz / Big Technology:
Apptopia: since Trump was banned from Twitter, daily use of Twitter has remained remarkably consistent  —  Trump's presence on Twitter had no impact on how much people used it, contrary to the popular narrative. … For as long as Donald Trump was president, there was a common misconception that Twitter's fate was tied to his.

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