Techmeme
February 9, 2021, 12:45 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Amazon is developing a wall-mounted Echo device with a large touchscreen that serves as a smart home control panel, video chat device, and media player  —  - Lab126 unit developing new device with touchscreen and Alexa  — Product to be thinner than Echo Show, come with video chat
Bloomberg:
A look at how Tim Cook has transformed Apple after Jobs into a more diversified company and successfully deflected political pressure  —  Trade war?  Pfft.  Trump?  Please.  Antitrust?  Zuck's prob.  (Ditto privacy.)  Revenue?  Endless.
Mishaal Rahman / XDA Developers:
Leaked images purportedly show mockups of Android 12, including major UI changes, a privacy indicator, conversation widget, new themes, and more  —  Google is set to release its next major version of Android — Android 12 — later this year, following a series of Developer Previews and Betas …
Sarah E. Needleman / Wall Street Journal:
Reddit raises $250M+ Series E led by Vy Capital at a $6B valuation, doubling in value since its last funding round in February 2019  —  Its WallStreetBets community played a prominent role in recent stock-trading frenzy  —  Reddit Inc. doubled its valuation to $6 billion in a new round …
Nate Lanxon / Bloomberg:
London-based Nothing, a consumer electronics startup from a OnePlus co-founder working on wireless headphones, raises $15M from GV  —  - Nothing will release headphones, other products this year  — GV backs startup's ‘Series A’ funding round with $15 million
Shara Tibken / CNET:
Qualcomm unveils next-gen X65 5G modem, likely to appear in phones in 2022, and says it can download data at 10Gpbs speeds and has a better battery life  —  Qualcomm's new modem is here, it's blazing fast and it's not just for phones .  The Snapdragon X65 5G Modem-RF System can download data …
Jason Koebler / VICE:
Police say a computer in a water treatment plant in FL, set up for remote access, was breached; the intruder tried raising sodium hydroxide levels in the water  —  The hacker tried to drastically increase sodium hydroxide levels in the water, Pinellas County, Florida, officials said on Monday.
Financial Times:
Researchers estimate that the NHS contact tracing app has prevented the transmissions of ~600K coronavirus infections in England and Wales  —  Study finds link in areas of England and Wales between high app usage and lower case numbers  —  The NHS contact-tracing app has prevented …
Financial Times:
EU lawmakers are considering regulations that would force Facebook and Google to pay for news content on their platforms, echoing a similar move in Australia  —  Move by MEPs would strengthen hand of publishers against Google and Facebook  —  EU lawmakers overseeing new digital regulation …
Manuel Vonau / Android Police:
Barcode Scanner, a now-removed Google Play Pass app that was installed 10M+ times, issued a malicious update; its developer has other apps in the Play Store  —  Google's reign over the Play Store often feels arbitrary, with legitimate apps disappearing for bogus reasons like out-of-context words or images while malware is striving.
Bloomberg:
Industry executives warn of severe chip shortages to make phones and game consoles, amid excessive stockpiling of chips by companies like Huawei and Apple  —  - The dearth of supply is deepening as Apple, China hoard chips  — Worsening crunch could impact sectors well beyond automaking
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
SentinelOne, which analyzes security data using AI, acquires Scalyr, a high-speed logging startup, for $155M in stock and cash  —  SentinelOne, a late-stage security startup that helps customers make sense of security data using AI and machine learning, announced today that it is acquiring Scalyr,
Ashley Gold / Axios:
Survey of 1,000 registered US voters: 44% strongly agree and 41% somewhat agree that social media plays a role in radicalizing people  —  A majority of Americans think social media “has played a role in radicalizing people,” according to a new poll from Accountable Tech and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner shared exclusively with Axios.
Foeke Postma / bellingcat:
Investigation reveals how Instagram influencers are enabling animal abuse for clicks by using services that promote Dubai's underground animal trade  —  The monkey squirms while a woman holds it up with one hand and records it without speaking.  The TikTok video is brief and has no description …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
RapidSOS, which builds tools to help emergency response teams, raises $85M Series C led by Insight Partners, bringing its total raised to $200M  —  Emergency response services have been one of the unsung heroes of the last chaotic year, providing essential and urgent medical and other assistance during …
More: PR NewswireThanks:@ingridlunden
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Symend, which uses behavioral analytics to help customers who have trouble paying bills, raises $43M Series B extension, bringing its total raised to $100M+  —  The pandemic-fueled economic uncertainty of the last year has led many to project that the rate of credit defaults among consumers will continue to wobble into 2021.
More: FinSMEs and VentureBeat
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Mighty Buildings, which aims to build homes with 3D printing tech and robotics, raises $40M Series B co-led by Khosla Ventures and Zeno Ventures  —  Once upon a time, the idea of 3D-printed homes felt like a thing of the future.  —  But as housing gets less and less affordable …
Joseph Cox / VICE:
Last week, Google sent a one week warning to Android developers requiring removal of SDK code from location data broker Predicio, after Dec. ban of X-Mode's SDK  —  Predicio is linked to a supply chain of data involving Venntel, which sells location data to ICE.  Google's move comes after a Motherboard investigation.

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