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Techmeme
May 21, 2021, 7:10 PM

Top News

Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
In his Epic v. Apple trial testimony, Tim Cook offered a carefully tended ignorance that left many of the lawsuit's key questions unanswered, or unanswerable  —  Apple CEO Tim Cook took his first turn in the witness chair this morning in what is probably the most anticipated testimony of the Epic v. Apple antitrust case.
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel says the company is happy to pay Apple's 30% IAP commission as “Snapchat wouldn't exist without the iPhone”  —  - Snap CEO Evan Spiegel on Friday said the social media company is happy to pay Apple's 30% commission rate on in-app transactions.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
The Information:
Sources: Netflix is looking to hire an executive to oversee an expansion into video games, as it considers options including an Apple Arcade-like games bundle  —  Netflix is looking to hire an executive to oversee an expansion into videogames, a sign it is stepping up its efforts …
Kim Lyons / The Verge:
Spotify adds offline playback for playlists, albums, and podcasts on Apple Watch for Premium subscribers; available on Watch Series 3 running WatchOS 6 and up  —  The announcement comes a few days after a similar feature was announced for Wear devices  —  Spotify is adding the ability …
Joseph Cox / VICE:
Leaked emails show that Citizen app is testing an on-demand private security service that will respond to “incidents” as requested by app users  —  Citizen would deploy private security forces at the request of app users, according to documents and sources.  —  Joseph Cox
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Snap has agreed to acquire WaveOptics, the supplier of the AR displays used in its new Spectacles glasses, for more than $500M  —  WaveOptics made the display in Snap's new Spectacles glasses  —  Snap has agreed to acquire WaveOptics, the supplier of the augmented reality displays that power …
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Twitter will soon let US users with 1,000+ followers who've hosted three Spaces in the past 30 days apply to host Ticketed Spaces, with Twitter taking a 20% cut  —  After Apple and Google's cut  —  Twitter's getting ready for the launch of its Ticketed Spaces feature, and today …
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon is shutting down its standalone Prime Now app and website by the end of the year and moving the fast delivery service to the Amazon app and website  —  - Amazon will discontinue its standalone Prime Now app and website by the end of this year, the company announced Friday.
Engadget:
Facebook's wav2vec Unsupervised, a way to build speech recognition systems that require no transcribed data, may bring automatic translations to more countries  —  Big Tech's AI machinery.  The tech powers the digital assistants on our  —  phones, in  —  cars and in the  —  smart speakers in our homes.
Mark Bergen / Bloomberg:
How Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are lobbying to kill “right to repair” bills, with half of all bills in 27 US states already voted down or dismissed  —  Justin Millman has always fixed things.  He tinkered with gadgets growing up before opening a repair shop in Westbury …
Parmy Olson / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: DeepMind sought autonomy from Google, aiming to keep its AI from being controlled by a single corporate entity, but Google nixed those plans last month  —  Alphabet cuts off yearslong push by founders of the artificial-intelligence company to secure more independence
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Found, which wants to create a one-stop shop for business banking, bookkeeping, and taxes for self-employed, raises $12.75M led by Sequoia  —  If you've ever been self-employed you know what a pain it is to keep up with the hassles of running a business.  From bookkeeping to invoicing to paying taxes — it's one big headache.
New York Times:
Biden administration says it will partner with popular dating apps including Tinder, OkCupid, Hinge, BLK, and Chispa to promote vaccinations against COVID-19  —  With a non-zero amount of awkwardness, the Biden administration on Friday highlighted a new plan to encourage more people to get vaccinated …

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