Techmeme
July 13, 2021, 6:40 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple and Goldman Sachs are working on a “buy now, pay later” service to let consumers pay for any Apple Pay purchase in installments, to rival Affirm  —  - Service to let users pay off any Apple Pay purchase over time  — Fresh partnership with Apple could boost Goldman consumer push
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
The current version of Apple's Weather app won't show 69 degrees, rounding up or down a degree; the behavior exists in some other iOS versions but not iOS 15  —  It's not so nice  —  If you're an iPhone user, the weather is always a particularly nice 70 degrees.  Or 68 degrees.
Gaspard Sebag / Bloomberg:
France fines Google $593M for failing to comply with a 2020 order to negotiate in good faith with publishers for displaying article snippets in Google News  —  - Tech giant penalized for not agreeing deal with publishers  — Fine is the second biggest French antitrust penalty so far
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
REvil's infrastructure and websites are offline, including its data leak sites, less than two weeks after attacking 1,500+ businesses with ransomware via Kaseya  —  The infrastructure and websites for the REvil ransomware operation have mysteriously gone offline as of last night.
Telegraph:
Excerpt from An Ugly Truth: from Jan. 2014 to Aug. 2015, Facebook fired 52 staffers for exploiting access to user data, prompting an overhaul of data governance  —  In an exclusive extract, Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang reveal how an ethos of openness meant private information could be misused
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple announces a $99 MagSafe Battery Pack for the iPhone 12 lineup, with a total capacity of 1460mAh, arriving July 19  —  Apple today released the MagSafe Battery Pack accessory for iPhone 12 models.  Many months after the iPhone 12 series was unveiled, Apple has quietly released …
The Information:
In April, Amazon acquired over a dozen staff from Facebook to boost its own low earth orbit satellite internet efforts; Amazon paid Facebook to seal agreement  —  Amazon has acquired a team of more than a dozen wireless internet experts from Facebook in an effort to boost its multibillion-dollar effort …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Ring says opt-in end-to-end encryption for video streams is available to all US users and is rolling out globally  —  It's available now in the US  —  Ring's end-to-end encryption for video streams is leaving technical preview, is now available to US users, and is currently rolling out globally …
Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
Discord buys Sentropy, which emerged from stealth last summer with AI-powered moderation software to fight online abuse and $13M in funding  —  The online chat platform Discord is buying Sentropy, a company that makes AI-powered software to detect and remove online harassment and hate.
The Guardian:
London Met Police says it seized ~£180M in bitcoin while investigating international money laundering, after seizing £114M of cryptocurrencies last month  —  Seizure in London follows confiscation of £114m of the cryptocurrency in June  —  Metropolitan police detectives …
Shannon Vavra / The Daily Beast:
Bitdefender says hackers behind TrickBot botnet, which was disrupted by US Cyber Command and Microsoft last year, have quietly rebuilt much of their operations  —  U.S. Cyber Command and Microsoft, among others, launched operations on the eve of the election meant to hobble a Russian-speaking hacking group.
Julia Reinstein / BuzzFeed News:
Some Black and LGBTQ passengers say Uber and Lyft drivers refuse rides by falsely claiming they're maskless, a claim also used against drivers to get free rides  —  Black and LGBTQ passengers told BuzzFeed News they're being refused rides due to false claims they're not wearing masks.
Chris Metinko / Crunchbase News:
Remote, which develops HR tools for global workforces, raises $150M Series B at a $1B+ valuation led by Accel  —  New York-based Remote raised a $150 million Series B at a valuation of more than $1 billion as it looks to make hiring anywhere easier for companies.  —  Subscribe to the Crunchbase Daily
NetBlocks:
In response to protests, NetBlocks says Cuba's state-run ISP has restricted social media and messaging apps, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp  —  Network data from NetBlocks confirm partial disruption to social media and messaging platforms in Cuba from 12 July 2021.
Mark Landler / New York Times:
After England's defeat in Euro 2020, Boris Johnson and others condemn racist abuse of players on social media, with some calling for tougher action by platforms  —  The social media bigotry, directed at three players who missed penalty kicks in the Euro 2020 final, was condemned by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and most everyone else.
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Sourcegraph, which offers a universal code search tool, raises $125M Series D led by a16z at a $2.6B valuation, up 3x from its December valuation  —  Sourcegraph, a late stage startup that wants to bring the power of search to code, announced a $125 million Series D investment today …
Lesley Goldberg / The Hollywood Reporter:
Sources: Netflix is turning to live events, like the Bridgerton Ball in London, video games, and merchandising to complement subscriber revenue and engage fans  —  Sources say the streaming giant wants to work directly with creators on live events that will, in success, provide new revenue streams as subscriber growth slows.
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
Google adds support for the BIMI security standard for brands in Gmail, showing authenticated logos for brands to help improve email-sender authenticity  —  Google has rolled out today support for the new Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) standard to all Gmail users as part …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
YouTube says Shorts, which launched in India before expanding to 26 countries, will now be available in over 100 countries  —  The short-form video experience arrives in more than 100 countries  —  YouTube's TikTok competitor, YouTube Shorts, is now rolling out globally.

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 6:40 PM ET, July 13, 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

Kyle Orland / Ars Technica:
Biz Carson / Protocol:

Earlier Picks

Gartner:
Mikael Thalen / The Daily Dot: