Techmeme
July 21, 2021, 5:20 PM

Top News

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Twitter is testing a way to downvote Tweet replies on iOS to understand the types of replies users find relevant to a conversation; downvotes won't be public  —  Last year, Twitter's chief product officer Kayvon Beykpour confirmed that the social network was “exploring” the idea of adding a dislike button to the app.
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Clubhouse is no longer invite-only as it exits beta and says the 10M people on its waitlist will be added to the app over time  —  The app goes wide  —  Clubhouse is going wide.  Co-founders Paul Davison and Rohan Seth announced today that the app is no longer invite-only.
CTech:
NSO CEO claims leaked list of 50K+ phone numbers potentially targeted with NSO spyware has “nothing to do with us” and had first heard about the list last month  —  “I'll give you a simple statement: Journalists, human rights activists, and civil organizations are all off-limits,” said Shalev Hulio
Matthew Green / A Few Thoughts …:
Mehul Srivastava / Financial Times:
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Epic Games acquires Sketchfab, which operates a repository with 4M+ 3D assets, for an undisclosed sum; Sketchfab reduces its store commission from 30% to 12%  —  New York-based startup Sketchfab has been acquired by Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite and Unreal Engine.
Katie Deighton / Wall Street Journal:
Tumblr starts testing Post+, which allows users to charge their followers a monthly fee in exchange for access to exclusive content, with Tumblr taking a 5% cut  —  Social platform is the latest to let users earn money from posting  —  Microblogging stalwart Tumblr on Wednesday began …
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Spanish police have arrested UK citizen Joseph O'Connor at the US' request over his alleged involvement in last year's hack of high-profile Twitter accounts  —  Authorities are still cracking down on participants in the July 2020  —  Twitter celebrity hacks.  Spanish National Police have
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
The FTC formally pledges to fight unlawful right-to-repair restrictions, says it will use its power to lower repair costs and support independent repair shops  —  It comes days after the White House endorsed similar rules  —  The Federal Trade Commission formally pledged to take on unlawful …
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Researchers detail two new local privilege escalation vulnerabilities, one in recent builds of Windows 10 and the preview of Windows 11, and the other in Linux  —  Both OSes have flaws that allow attackers with a toehold to elevate access.  —  The world woke up on Tuesday to two new vulnerabilities …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Google Maps expands its crowdedness predictions to 10K+ transit agencies in 100 countries, and will show how crowded individual carriages are in NYC and Sydney  —  Expanding to ‘over 10,000 transit agencies in 100 countries’  —  Google is expanding the number of cities where Maps offers information about public transport crowding.
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch:
Argo AI says it plans launch up to 1,000 autonomous vehicles on Lyft's network in some US cities over the next five years, starting with Miami later this year  —  Autonomous vehicle technology startup Argo AI and its backer and customer Ford plan to launch up to 1,000 self-driving vehicles …
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
SEC Chairman Gary Gensler: stock tokens and stablecoins backed by securities “are implicated by the securities laws and must work within our securities regime”  —  Stock tokens and stablecoins backed by securities might be treated as securities under U.S. law, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said.
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Google is shutting down Google Bookmarks on September 30, 2021, and clarifies Starred locations in Google Maps will not be deleted after Bookmarks shuts down  —  After 16 years of service, Google is about to shut down a service that isn't very well known.  On September 30, 2021 “Google Bookmarks” will be closed off for all users.
Washington Post:
Top US Catholic Church official resigns after a Catholic media site obtained his alleged Grindr app and phone location data from an undisclosed data broker  —  The top administrator of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops resigned after a Catholic media site told the conference it had access …
BBC:
EU Commission proposes a new law that would force companies that transfer Bitcoin or other crypto-assets to collect details of recipients and senders  —  Proposed changes to EU law would force companies that transfer Bitcoin or other crypto-assets to collect details on the recipient and sender.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Byju's acquires Epic, a reading service for kids with a presence across 90% of elementary schools in the US, for $500M  —  Byju's said on Wednesday it has acquired California-headquartered reading platform Epic for $500 million, the latest in a series of moves from India's most valuable startup …
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
Core Scientific, which says it is the biggest bitcoin mining company in the US, says it will go public via SPAC at a valuation of around $4.3B  —  - Cryptocurrency mining operator Core Scientific is listing on the Nasdaq through a merger with Power & Digital Infrastructure Acquisition Corp.
Marc Vartabedian / Wall Street Journal:
Virtually Human Studio, the startup behind Zed Run, which lets users breed and race virtual horses bought and sold as NFTs, raises $20M Series A led by TCG  —  Zed Run's parent company nets $20 million as media startups, NFTs surge  —  Virtually Human Studio, the startup behind digital …
Anna Kramer / Protocol:
Poll: of 750 tech workers, half are at least somewhat interested in joining a union, and ~50% say there is already interest of unionizing at their workplace  —  In a survey of tech industry workers, about 50% of respondents said they are very or somewhat interested in joining a union in their workplace …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
UiPath:
Introducing the UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation  —  UiPath's new platform empowers enterprises to experience the full power of AI to transform industries
Zoho:
Automate recurring activities with Zoho One's RPA addition  —  Robotic Process Automation (RPA) automates manual and routine tasks for businesses by using digital robots that replicate human behaviour.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
Why Clone A Messaging App?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Grit:
HubSpot CEO on the Future of SaaS, AI, & Leading Through Change
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
Inside Devin: The world's first autonomous AI engineer that's set to write 50% of its company's code by end of year | Scott Wu (CEO and co-founder of Cognition)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Hard Fork:
The Dangers of A.I. Flattery + Kevin Meets the Orb + Group Chat Chat
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Ben Lamm (Founder & CEO, Colossal Biosciences) On The Breakthroughs Making De-Extinction Actually Possible
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Great Chat:
What's the deal with Deel?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:20 PM ET, July 21, 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

Earlier Picks

Paul Benjamin Osterlund / Rest of World:
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: