Techmeme
February 26, 2021, 2:25 PM

Top News

Cecilia Kang / New York Times:
FCC approves a $50/month high-speed internet subsidy for low-income households and a one-time discount of up to $100 on a computer or tablet for eligible homes  —  The money, aimed at low-income households, is part of an effort to bridge the access gap to broadband connectivity amid the pandemic.
Vignesh Ramachandran / Stanford News:
Study finds video chats fatigue humans due to the intense up-close eye contact, constant self-view in real time, reduced mobility, and increased cognitive load  —  It's not just Zoom.  Popular video chat platforms have design flaws that exhaust the human mind and body.  But there are easy ways to mitigate their effects.
Jason Del Rey / Vox:
More than a dozen current and ex-Amazon corporate employees say its Black staff often face direct and insidious bias that harms their careers and personal lives  —  Interviews with diversity managers and internal data obtained by Recode indicate that Black Amazon employees are promoted less frequently …
Jan Stryjak / Counterpoint Research:
European smartphone market shrank by 14% YoY in 2020, with Xiaomi up 85% and Huawei down 62%; Apple hit record market share of 30% in Q4 helped by iPhone 12  —  Boston, Toronto, London, New Delhi, Beijing, Taipei, Seoul - February 26, 2021  —  2020 was a rollercoaster year for the European smartphone market.
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
Apple begins showing a repair index for devices like the iPhone and Mac in France, due to local regulations set by the Minister of Ecological Transition  —  Apple surprisingly began to show a repair index for devices like the iPhone and Mac in the Apple Store app and the Apple Online Store in France this week.
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Twitter's Super Follows represent a surge of interest in tools that let individuals create real economic value for themselves on social networks  —  Will Super Follows shake up the media industry?  —  16 hr ago  —  Today let's talk about Twitter's move into subscriptions …
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Tim Anderson / The Register:
Security researcher finds seven embedded trackers in the Android app for LastPass password manager; its maker says users can opt out if they want  —  Third-party code in security-critical apps is obviously suboptimal, but company says you can opt out  —  A security researcher has recommended …
Cameron Faulkner / The Verge:
Facebook is rolling out an opt-in feature, allowing “Hey Facebook” to be used as a wake word for its Portal displays and Oculus Quest platform  —  Available on Portal smart displays and rolling out on Oculus Quest headsets  —  Facebook has introduced a new “Hey Facebook” …
Reuters:
ByteDance has agreed to a $92M class action settlement over data privacy claims from some US TikTok users, according to court documents  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - ByteDance has agreed to a $92 million class-action settlement to settle data privacy claims from some U.S. TikTok users …
Katie Deighton / Wall Street Journal:
Apple, Google, and Amazon are training their voice assistants to better understand people with speech disorders such as stutter  —  Voice assistants like Alexa and Siri often can't understand people with dysarthria or a stutter; their creators say that may change
Ryan Mac / BuzzFeed News:
Facebook's Andrew Bosworth told staff that Facebook is considering building facial recognition into future smart glasses products, weighing legal implications  —  Facebook is discussing building facial recognition into its upcoming smart glasses product and has been weighing the legal implications …
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Stori, which offers credit cards in Mexico through its app, raises 32.5M Series B led by Lightspeed, bringing its total raised to $50M  —  While credit cards are commonplace in the United States, they are far less ubiquitous in many other countries, particularly those in Latin America.

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.
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:
CIO challenge 5: Can we find an effective solution that also minimizes operational costs?  —  Welcome to the next and final installment of our CIO series!  After what feels like a thousand cups of coffee …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 11/21 - What The DOJ Wants Google To Do
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 2:25 PM ET, February 26, 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

Robinhood:
Stephanie Condon / ZDNet:

Earlier Picks

Cynthia Littleton / Variety:
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Zoe Schiffer / The Verge:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Matthew Gault / VICE:
Megan Graham / CNBC:
Daniel Van Boom / CNET: