Techmeme
March 28, 2021, 12:45 PM

Top News

Nick Statt / The Verge:
Amazon is pursuing an increasingly aggressive PR strategy, picking fights with Democratic politicians such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders on Twitter  —  Who is Amazon trying to convince?  —  Amazon is intensifying its bizarre online public relations strategy of picking increasingly petty …
USA Today:
NY State launches first US “vaccine passport” app, Excelsior Pass, built on IBM's blockchain-based health pass platform, to be used initially at large venues  —  Starting Friday, New Yorkers will be able to pull up a code on their cell phone or a printout to prove they've …
Jeff John Roberts / Decrypt:
Inside BitClout, the controversial service that tokenizes Twitter personalities, mostly without permission, and has $170M worth of BTC raised from a16z, others  —  Diamondhands greets me on the encrypted messaging app Signal.  He can see me over video, but his own video is turned off …
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A with NYT's Kevin Roose on his new book Futureproof, how robotic process automation might replace some white-collar jobs, Microsoft Excel TikTok, and more  —  As the editor-in-chief of The Verge, I can theoretically assign whatever I want.  However, there is one topic I have failed …
Reggie Ugwu / New York Times:
A look at Google's hands-off content moderation approach for Google Podcasts, where hate speech from white supremacists and pro-Nazi groups is easy to find  —  The platform's tolerance of white supremacist, pro-Nazi and conspiracy theory content pushes the boundaries of the medium.
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple releases iOS 14.4.2 and iOS 12.5.2 to fix a critical cross-site scripting vulnerability in WebKit that “may have been actively exploited”  —  Apple today released iOS 14.4.2 for iPhone and iPad, and watchOS 7.3.3 for Apple Watch.  The updates includes an important security fix for WebKit …
Wall Street Journal:
Interviews and documents reveal that in the year before his death, Tony Hsieh was surrounded by people who lived off his fortune and enabled his risky lifestyle  —  The group that surrounded the late Zappos boss helped sustain his drug habit, protected him from outsiders and lived off his largess
Liam Tung / ZDNet:
Microsoft says 92% of vulnerable Exchange servers have been patched/mitigated, and reiterates that patches do not necessarily remove the access of the attacker  —  If you're cleaning up a infected Exchange server, you need to look for traces of multiple threats, warns Microsoft.
Krystal Hu / Reuters:
Report: close to half the tech M&A deals in the US included a stock consideration in 2020, the highest percentage since 2016, versus only 27% in 2019  —  (Reuters) - Cash may be king, but stock is queen in the land of technology mergers and acquisitions during a pandemic-fueled tech boom.

Sponsor Posts

TELUS Digital:
See how your customer experience priorities compare  —  TELUS Digital surveyed leaders about the tech they're investing in, the KPIs they're tracking and their plans for outsourcing.  Get the results.  No form fill required!
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:
Planned India Data Center Maintenance on 5th and 6th April 2025 from 09.00 AM to 09:30 AM IST for Zoho Payments  —  Dear customers,Our bi-annual infrastructure maintenance for our India Data Center is scheduled for April 5 & 6 …
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:
xAI Acquires X
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:
CEO Matt Bromberg on ending Unity's 'war' against its customers
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Diggnation:
GTA 6, Helicopter Joysticks, AI Psychics, and Live Show Regret
Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht give you their unique, sometimes awkward, and always hilarious take on the edges of the internet.
Subscribe to Diggnation.
Grit:
From India to Silicon Valley: The Jay Chaudhry & Zscaler Story
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
A better way to plan, build, and ship products | Ryan Singer (creator of "Shape Up," early employee at 37signals)
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:
The Tech Behind Signalgate + Dwarkesh Patel's "Scaling Era" + Is A.I. Making Our Listeners Dumb?
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:45 PM ET, March 28, 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.

Earlier Picks

Abby Ohlheiser / MIT Technology Review:
Roland Li / San Francisco Chronicle: