Techmeme
March 4, 2021, 5:10 PM

Top News

Katherine Rosman / New York Times:
Square acquires a majority stake in Jay-Z's streaming service Tidal for $297M; Jay-Z will join Square's board  —  What did Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey talk about when they went yachting around the Hamptons together last summer?  Perhaps only Beyoncé knows.  —  Maybe now we do, too.
Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:
Sources: EU is set to press antitrust charges against Apple over App Store rules for competing music streaming services, following a complaint by Spotify  —  Brussels set to formally press charges alleging tech company used its dominance to squeeze out App Store rivals
Bloomberg:
UK antitrust authorities say they plan to investigate Apple's App Store to probe whether it is abusing its market power to restrict competition  —  - CMA taking into account Apple's ‘dominant’ position in apps  — Apple probe prompted by complaints from some developers
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple clarifies that users can't actually set a default music service in iOS 14.5 but has a feature that lets Siri attempt to learn preferred listening apps  —  Apple has clarified that the iOS 14.5 beta is not actually allowing users to select a new default music service, as has been reported.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Leaked images show Sonos Roam, the company's smallest portable speaker, expected to ship on April 20 for $169  —  You're looking at the first images of the next speaker from Sonos.  Set to be priced at $169, the new device — it's called the Sonos Roam — is much smaller than the Sonos Move …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft rolls out new features for Edge, including vertical tabs and a feature that it says can improve startup times by 29% to 41% after a device reboots  —  Microsoft Edge gets some new features for March  —  Microsoft is rolling out some new improvements to its Edge browser this month.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Facebook adds one-to-one voice and video calling to the WhatsApp desktop app, but the browser version, WhatsApp Web, is not getting this feature at the moment  —  WhatsApp is rolling out support for voice and video calling to its desktop app, the Facebook-owned messaging service said Thursday …
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
In the past month, three of the longest-running Russian cybercrime forums have been hacked, leaking their users' email addresses, login metadata, and more  —  Over the past few weeks, three of the longest running and most venerated Russian-language online forums serving thousands of experienced cybercriminals have been hacked.
Gilad Edelman / Wired:
Study: far-right pubs get 65% more engagement on Facebook when they publish fake news; liberal and centrist pubs get less engagement if they publish misinfo  —  Far-right pages that publish misinformation get the most interactions by far compared to other news sources, new research shows.
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Virtual events startup Hopin raises $400M at a $5.65B valuation, more than double its valuation in its November round  —  - Hopin says it's raised $400 million at a $5.65 billion valuation, more than double what it was worth in a November investment round.  — The latest financing round …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Stream, which lets developers build chat and activity streams into apps and other services with a few lines of code, raises $38M Series B  —  A lot of our communication these days with each other is digital, and today one of the companies enabling that — with APIs to build chat experiences into apps …
Saqib Shah / Engadget:
Qualcomm announces Snapdragon Sound, an initiative to enhance the wireless sound experience by lowering latency and improving connection issues  —  Just days after it unveiled its project to bring  —  advanced haptics to Android, Qualcomm has announced another ambitious venture aimed at bridging the gaps in device performance.
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Zimperium analysis: 14% of Android and iOS apps connecting to cloud services like AWS or Azure, totaling ~19K apps, have misconfigurations that expose user data  —  It's the digital equivalent of leaving your windows or doors open when you leave the house—and in some cases, leaving them open all the time.
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
After two Black Salesforce staff pointed to workplace issues in resignation letters, Salesforce's LinkedIn account posted a now-deleted message supporting BLM  —  - A person who gained access to Salesforce's LinkedIn account published a post saying that “BLACK LIVES STILL F—  G MATTER.
Tweets: @caseynewton
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Facebook says its new AI model SEER, which was trained with self-supervision on a billion public Instagram images, outperformed advanced fully supervised models  —  Join Transform 2021 for the most important themes in enterprise AI & Data.  Learn more.  —  Facebook today announced …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Nintendo plans to unveil a new Switch model in 2021 that will come with 7-inch 720p Samsung OLED display, and support 4K graphics when docked with TVs  —  - Samsung Display will start production of 7-inch panels in June  — Gaming giant aims to propel Switch against the Xbox and PS5
Ashley Gold / Axios:
Sources: Microsoft president Brad Smith will testify before a House antitrust subcommittee hearing next Friday about tech antitrust and the news media  —  Microsoft president Brad Smith will testify before a House antitrust subcommittee hearing next Friday about tech antitrust and the news media …
More: OnMSFT.comTweets: @b_fung
Samantha Hissong / Rolling Stone:
Kings of Leon to be one of the first bands to debut an album as part of an NFT package, with tokens unlocking perks like limited-edition vinyl and concert seats  —  The band's revolutionary tokens will unlock special perks like limited-edition vinyl and front row seats to future concerts

Sponsor Posts

Termina:
AI Powered Diligence at Scale  —  VCs and founders deploy Termina AI Scans on >12% of all known series A+ deals to uncover hidden risks and opportunities.  Explore how you too can invest and build better companies with AI.
Intel:
Intel Delivers powerful CPUs for AI and Networking  —  With the onset of AI, businesses demand powerful and efficient CPUs.  Explore new Intel Xeon 6 processors, for the broadest set of workloads with leadership performance and lower TCO.
Zoho:
Gamification: A simple way to enjoy getting more work done  —  Work doesn't have to be boring.  Gamification transforms everyday tasks into exciting challenges, making employees feel more engaged and motivated.
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:
E2EE For All!
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:
Why Trump can't be trusted with Congress' new anti-deepfake bill
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Lenny's Podcast:
Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months--one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder & CEO of StackBlitz)
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.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen Breaks Down the Global Impact of Trump's New Tariffs
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Generative Now:
Dan Shipper: The First MultiModal Media Company
A podcast from Lightspeed dedicated to highlighting the stories, strategies and insights behind today's most exciting AI companies.
Subscribe to Generative Now.
Spotlight On:
Nebius's Arkady Volozh on What it Takes to Build Infrastructure Needed for the AI Era
A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.
Subscribe to Spotlight On.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:10 PM ET, March 4, 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

Sarah Butler / The Guardian:
William J. Broad / New York Times:

Earlier Picks

Casey Newton / Platformer:
Mitchell Clark / The Verge: