Techmeme
April 17, 2021, 3:15 PM

Top News

Julie Zhu / Reuters:
Sources: Ant Group is exploring options for founder Jack Ma to divest his stake and give up control to appease Chinese regulators  —  Ant Group is exploring options for founder Jack Ma to divest his stake in the financial technology giant and give up control, as meetings with Chinese regulators signaled …
More: Insider
Ira Boudway / Bloomberg:
How Aurora, now the owner of Uber's ATG, is moving to bring its self-driving tech to market via deals with Volvo in trucking, Uber and Toyota in taxis, more  —  On Feb. 11, about a month after closing on the acquisition of Uber's Advanced Technologies Group, or ATG, the self-driving-car startup Aurora held an all-hands meeting.
Issie Lapowsky / Protocol:
Big tech whistleblowers describe the severe emotional toll that standing up to gigantic companies takes and how it sets them on the path to advocacy  —  Last summer, just before she published a viral Twitter thread about the discrimination she said she faced at Pinterest …
Rest of World:
Internet blackouts following a military coup have shut down swathes of the online economy in Myanmar, where internet penetration had surged to around 43%  —  Amid internet blackouts, economic isolation, and massive strikes, a decade of development is unwinding.
James Vincent / The Verge:
As the EU considers new regulations for AI, 60+ NGOs ask the EC to ban automatic gender recognition systems, which rely on outmoded understandings of gender  —  Dangers posed by facial recognition like mass surveillance and mistaken identity have been widely discussed in recent years.
Naaman Zhou / The Guardian:
Australian Federal Court rules Google misled Android users into thinking it would not collect their location data when they turned location history off  —  Google collected data on some Android and Pixel phones even when customers ticked ‘No’ or ‘Do not collect’
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency that started out as a joke in 2013, now has a market cap of $40B+ after growing nearly 400%+ in the past seven days  —  - Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency based on the “Doge” meme, which rose to popularity in late 2013.  It started out as a joke.
Shen Lu / Protocol:
How Weibo helps Chinese authorities quash the feminist movement by deleting activist accounts, while also profiting from their nationalist harassers  —  Prominent feminist activist Xiao Meili had never expected to find herself in the center of a nationalist storm.
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Interview with Initialized Capital's Garry Tan on the firm's seed investment in Coinbase, Ohanian's departure, building a presence on social media, and more  —  Covering venture capital, software and startups  —  In March 2012, Garry Tan received an email from the founder of a new startup called Bitbank, Brian Armstrong.
Kristin Robinson / Variety:
As Spotify turns 15, a look at the ways in which it changed how people listen to music, like breaking down boundaries between genres through “mood playlists”  —  Ask any executive what the music business was like in the '00s and their face may take on an expression more commonly associated …
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Sources detail Amazon's tactics during the Alabama union campaign, including “captive audience meetings”, as workers explain why the union was unconvincing  —  - Last week, workers at one of Amazon's Alabama warehouses overwhelmingly voted against joining the Retail …
Jem Aswad / Variety:
Looking at payment per stream metrics for music streaming services can be misleading when considering artist pay, as many factors determine streaming royalties  —  Early Friday, Apple Music sent a carefully worded letter to artists, music labels and publishers that briefly explained …
Anne Steele / Wall Street Journal:

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.
Zoho:
The crossroads of AI and SaaS  —  Enabling businesses of all sizes to build products in-house and disqualifying SaaS tools that are not AI-powered.  In a span of just two years, AI has made a name for itself as the key driver for innovation.
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
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.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 12/20 - Gemini Flash Thinking
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 3:15 PM ET, April 17, 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

Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch:
The Information:

Earlier Picks

Cristiano Lima / Politico:
Spencer Soper / Bloomberg:
Associated Press:
Dieter Bohn / The Verge: