Techmeme
June 16, 2021, 11:55 AM

Top News

Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: some of Apple's healthcare efforts, including a pilot primary healthcare service with Apple-employed doctors, have stalled due to internal concerns  —  Tech giant has envisioned hiring doctors to offer primary care, now focused on Watch  —  Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook …
New York Times:
Biden names Lina Khan, an antitrust expert who wrote the “Amazon Antitrust Paradox”, as FTC chair, after the Senate voted 69-28 to confirm her as commissioner  —  Ms. Khan, who first attracted notice as a critic of Amazon, was confirmed by the Senate as a commissioner on the agency on Tuesday.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify launches Spotify Greenroom, a new app that allows Spotify users worldwide to join or host live audio rooms, and turn those conversations into podcasts  —  In March, Spotify announced it was acquiring the company behind the sports-focused audio app Locker Room to help speed its entry into the live audio market.
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Waymo raises $2.5B from Alphabet, a16z, Tiger Global, and others, to advance its autonomous driving tech and grow its team  —  - Google sibling company Waymo announced a $2.5 billion investment round Wednesday, which will go toward advancing its autonomous driving technology and growing its team.
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Overview of House lawmakers' recent antitrust-focused bills, which target consumer tech giants, vary in radicalness, and at times conflict with each other  —  From the Wall Street Journal:  —  These bills are the ultimate outcome of the House Subcommittee on Antitrust's investigation …
David Cohen / Adweek:
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Interview with Apple's VP for Technology Kevin Lynch on Apple Watch's evolution, future health capabilities through sensor fusion with AirPods, and more  —  Apple VP of Technology Kevin Lynch charts a path from Apple Watch's early days to the sophistication of Health today.
Hayden Field / Morning Brew:
Sources detail Airbnb's failures to prioritize anti-discrimination outside of talking points, including its Smart Pricing algorithm, which widened inequalities  —  Sources say the company prioritizes anti-discrimination in its talking points, but not in its spending.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Novo, a neobank targeting small businesses, raises $40.7M Series A led by Valar Ventures  —  Small businesses have traditionally been underserved when it comes to IT — they are too big and have too many requirements that can't be met by consumer products, yet are much too small to afford …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
After years of pop-up experiments, Google says its first retail store, located in the Chelsea neighborhood of NYC, will open on June 17  —  Pixel, Nest, Fitbit, and third-party accessories will be on sale  —  After years of pop-up experiments, Google is finally dipping its toes …
Bloomberg:
Japan Display, which sold its smartphone screen factory last year, is pivoting to VR; LCDs are projected to dominate the VR headset market over the next 5 years  —  - Superseded on mobile, LCDs can better compete with OLED in VR  — JDI believes headset business could grow into a linchpin
Wall Street Journal:
Alibaba's Taobao was clandestinely scraped by a web crawler for 8 months, leading to a leak of 1.1B pieces of user data, including user IDs and phone numbers  —  Software developer scrapes 1.1 billion pieces of user data, including IDs and phone numbers, over eight months
Bloomberg:
Amazon's planned new African HQ, located in Cape Town, has met with fierce resistance and protests by indigenous people, with 50,000 objections  —  - Khoisan group trying to stop building of $291 million project  — City of Cape Town says venture will add jobs, boost economy
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Ahead of Microsoft's event to unveil the next gen of Windows, a Windows 11 build leaks, showing a revamped UI, like a new taskbar with centered app icons, more  —  Screenshots have leaked online  —  Screenshots of Microsoft's upcoming Windows 11 operating system have appeared online today.
Daphne Leprince-Ringuet / ZDNet:
IBM unveils the Quantum System One, its first quantum computer physically built outside of the US, in Germany in partnership with research institute Fraunhofer  —  Big Blue has, for the first time, built a quantum computer that is not physically located in its US data centers.
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Privacy activists worry about the lack of transparency and detailed info on how Apple plans to implement driver's licenses and other digital IDs on its devices  —  Digital driver's licenses have had a slow start in the US so far, but iOS 15 Wallet will give the nascent technology a serious push.

Sponsor Posts

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:
How you can grow your business with Zoho One  —  Zoho One is a comprehensive business suite, giving businesses the scalability, stability, security, and features they need for smooth operations.
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 11/14 - The FBI (!) Investigating Polymarket
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 11:55 AM ET, June 16, 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

Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Atlantic:
Ashley Lampard / Rest of World:

Earlier Picks

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac: