Techmeme
April 7, 2021, 12:10 PM

Top News

Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Facebook says the leaked 533M records are a different data set that attackers created by abusing a flaw in a Facebook contacts import feature, not by hacking  —  The company's explanations have been confusing and inconsistent, but there are finally some answers.
Politico:
Data of EU privacy chief Didier Reynders, Luxembourg PM Xavier Bettel, and dozens of EU officials found among Facebook's leaked data set of 533M records  —  Didier Reynders, Luxembourg PM Xavier Bettel among European leaders whose data was leaked online.  —  EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders …
Lauren Goode / Wired:
A first person narrative on the persistence of digital memories and how social media and photo apps that surface old photos make painful memories hard to forget  —  In 2019, I made a painful decision.  But to the algorithms that drive Facebook, Pinterest, and a million other apps, I'm forever getting married.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Jeff Bezos says Amazon supports a rise in the corporate tax rate and making bold investments in US infrastructure, but stops short of supporting Biden's plan  —  - Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Tuesday voiced support for raising the corporate tax rate but stopped short of saying he supports President Joe Biden's plan for the increase.
Maria Armental / Wall Street Journal:
Patreon raises $155M Series F led by Tiger Global Management at a $4B valuation, up from $1.2B in September, bringing its total raised to $411M  —  Online company raises $155 million in latest round, led by new investor Tiger Global Management  —  Patreon Inc., an online platform …
David Meyer / Fortune:
Max Schrems' non-profit Noyb files a complaint with the French privacy watchdog, claims Google's Android Advertising Identifier violates EU's ePrivacy Directive  —  Our mission to make business better is fueled by readers like you.  To enjoy unlimited access to our journalism, subscribe today.
Jeff John Roberts / Decrypt:
Ahead of its April 14 direct listing, Coinbase reports a record quarter, with estimated profits of $730M-$800M in Q1 on revenue of ~$1.8B and 56M verified users  —  Coinbase announced its 2021 first quarter earnings on Tuesday, revealing that the crypto giant made a profit of between $730 million …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Sonos Roam review: portable and rugged design, sound quality is good but bass is limited by form factor, charges wirelessly but battery life is not great  —  The tiny, lightweight speaker has a ton of functionality, but don't expect sound quality miracles  —  The Sonos Roam is the most focused, calculated product from Sonos yet.
Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:
Plaid, which helps connect users' bank accounts with fintech apps, raises $425M Series D led by Altimeter Capital, sources say at a valuation of ~$13.4B  —  Plaid, a unicorn that helps connect consumers' bank accounts to financial applications, has raised a $425 million Series D, it announced this morning.
Cameron Faulkner / The Verge:
Alienware announces M15 R5, starting at $2,230, with AMD Ryzen 5000 H-series CPUs, the first Alienware laptop since 2007 to use AMD processors  —  Expect big performance boosts  —  Alienware has announced the latest revision to its flagship gaming laptop lineup, the 15-inch Alienware M15 R5.
Megan Graham / CNBC:
Report: digital ad spending grew 12.2% YoY in 2020 to $139.8B, as H2 political ad spending offset the H1 falloff; top 10 companies held 78.1% share of revenues  —  - Despite an initial falloff due to the Covid pandemic, digital advertising spending grew 12.2% year over year in 2020 …
Alexandra Bruell / Wall Street Journal:
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Interviews with three women working at NSA and Cyber Command highlight the progress made in gender equality in recent years and the work that still remains  —  WIRED spoke with three women working in cybersecurity in the US intelligence committee about the progress of recent years and the work that remains.
Ellery Roberts Biddle / Tech Policy Press:
Facebook and Google's commitment to protecting human rights and the public interest is hamstrung by their ad-based profit models and absolute focus on growth  —  Facebook and Google have made broad-based commitments to protect human rights and the public interest, but only to the extent …
Amplifi Media:
Apple podcast data indicates that there are 2M podcasts, but of those, 26% only have one episode, 44% have three or fewer, and only 36% have 10+ episodes  —  Today's post breaks down the numbers of how many podcasts you're actually up against.  —  It seems everyone has a podcast.  Or do they?
Nikkei Asia:
Internal memo: Huawei is closing its core cloud and AI business after only 14 months, splitting the group into two  —  Change mirrors struggle to transition from hardware maker to service provider  —  Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies is closing its core cloud and artificial …
Parmy Olson / Wall Street Journal:
UK launches the Digital Markets Unit, a watchdog with limited powers, initially tasked with stopping big tech companies from exploiting market dominance  —  Digital Markets Unit to police how largest global technology firms wield their market power  —  LONDON—The U.K. launched …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Pathlight, which provides a range of tools to visualize team and individual performance, raises $25M led by Insight Partners, bringing its total raised to $35M  —  The longer we continue to work with either all or part of our teams in remote, out-of-physical-office environments …

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:
5 common accounting mistakes  —  This is a guest post by Yaali Bizappln Solutions.  A lot of businesses manage their customers and finances on separate platforms.  This disconnect often leads to missed invoices …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
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Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Alnoor Peermohamed / The Economic Times:
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Pranob Mehrotra / XDA Developers: