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Techmeme
April 8, 2021, 10:15 AM

Top News

Nikkei Asia:
Sources: production of some MacBooks and iPads has been postponed due to the global component shortage, a sign that the chip shortage is growing more serious  —  US tech giant's headaches suggest even worse chip shortages lie ahead  —  TAIPEI — Production of some MacBooks and iPads …
Max Chafkin / Bloomberg:
Peter Thiel says he is a “pro-Bitcoin maximalist”, but BTC threatens fiat money and might be used by China to undercut the US dollar's reserve currency status  —  Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist and conservative political donor, urged the U.S. government to consider tighter regulations …
Emi Nietfeld / New York Times:
An ex-Google engineer says she endured harassment for over a year and that Google's positive external image led her to delay reporting it  —  I learned the hard way that no publicly traded company is a family.  —  Ms. Nietfeld is a software engineer.  She worked at Google from 2015 to 2019.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Twitter discussed acquiring Clubhouse for around $4B but the talks fell apart; Clubhouse is now looking to raise funding at a $4B valuation  —  - Talks no longer active between Twitter, social media startup  — Clubhouse is seeking to raise funding at a similar valuation
Elizabeth Culliford / Reuters:
Facebook says it did not notify users about the 2019 data leak affecting 533M accounts at the time and doesn't plan to do so now  —  (Reuters) - Facebook Inc did not notify the more than 530 million users whose details were obtained through the misuse of a feature before 2019 and recently …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Facebook's NPE team launches Hotline, a web-based app to let creators stream and record live video or audio Q&As, in public beta  —  Facebook's internal R&D group, NPE Team, has today launched its latest experiment, Hotline, into public beta testing.  The web-based application …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple unveils a revamped Find My program with support for third-party devices and says devices from Belkin, Chipolo, and VanMoof will be first to work with it  —  Apple today announced the launch of its Find My network accessory program, which is designed to allow third-party Bluetooth devices …
James Vincent / The Verge:
Facebook says it is adding contextual labels to posts by Pages like “satire page” and “public official” to reduce confusion about their origin  —  Facebook is adding labels to satire pages in the News Feed  —  Facebook is adding additional labels to posts from Pages …
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
Apple's conclusions of law in Epic case: App Store doesn't lead the gaming market, so consequently it cannot be considered a monopoly  —  Back in August 2020, Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store after an update that bypassed the App Store's in-app purchases system.
Matt Mullenweg:
Matt Mullenweg denounces Wix's bizarre marketing campaign against WordPress and says Wix's business model “is getting customers to pay more and more every year”  —  Wix, the website builder company you may remember from stealing WordPress code and lying about it …
Derrek Lee / Android Central:
Google has started rolling out an updated UI for the Play Store, which moves the Play Store menu items to the profile thumbnail and removes the hamburger menu  —  The Play Store redesign is here whether you like it or not.  —  What you need to know  — Google's new Play Store UI is rolling out now on Android devices.
Ian Carlos Campbell / The Verge:
Lenovo's 6.92" Legion Phone Duel 2 has two 2,750 mAh batteries, two USB-C ports, two cooling fans, pop-up camera, Snapdragon 888, up to 18GB RAM, from €999  —  Multiple ports, a pop-up camera, and yes — two fans  —  Lenovo's next gaming phone leaked earlier this week …
Quint Forgey / Politico:
Twitter says it won't let the US National Archives make @realDonaldTrump's old tweets available publicly via Twitter's platform, citing his permanent suspension  —  Twitter will not allow the National Archives to make former President Donald Trump's past tweets from his @realDonaldTrump account available …
Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times:
Indian social media startup ShareChat raises $502M from investors including Tiger Global, Snap, and Twitter, at a valuation of $2.1B, and says it has 160M MAUs  —  Indian social media company raised $500m for short-video app Moj  —  Indian social media firm ShareChat has raised more than half …
Dave Lee / Financial Times:
Melissa Repko / CNBC:
Best Buy is piloting Best Buy Beta, a new membership program with perks including unlimited tech support and free shipping for $200/yr, starting in IA, OK, PA  —  - Best Buy is piloting an annual membership program in select stores in Iowa, Oklahoma and eastern Pennsylvania.

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Earlier Picks

Zoe Schiffer / The Verge:
Bloomberg:
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Allison Johnson / The Verge: