Techmeme
July 29, 2021, 8:50 PM

Top News

Maggie Fitzgerald / CNBC:
Robinhood closes down 8% on its first day of trading, after raising $2.1B in its IPO at a valuation of around $32B  —  - Stock trading app Robinhood fell more than 8% on its first day of trading on the Nasdaq.  — Robinhood's opening price was $38 per share.
Amazon.com, Inc.:
Amazon reports Q2 revenue of $113.08B vs. $115.2B est., net sales grew 27% YoY, net income of $7.8B, and AWS net sales of $14.8B, up 37% YoY; stock down 5%+  —  SEATTLE—(BUSINESS WIRE) July 29, 2021—Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced financial results for its second quarter ended June 30, 2021.
Ryne Hager / Android Police:
Google updates Play Store policies to ban apps offering “compensated sexual relationships”, likely impacting sugar daddy dating apps, beginning September 1  —  Today, Google published a handful of changes to its Play policies, and nestled among precise legalese refinements …
Karen Hao / MIT Technology Review:
Profile of Sophie Zhang, a former Facebook data scientist who wrote an exit memo detailing Facebook's inadequate steps to address global election misinformation  —  Sophie Zhang, a former data scientist at Facebook, revealed that it enables global political manipulation and has done little to stop it.
Jing Yang / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Didi is considering going private to placate Chinese authorities and compensate investors for losses with money made during its IPO; Didi denies report  —  Ride-hailing giant has been contemplating delisting plan as crackdown widens and has obtained support from cybersecurity watchdog
Jonathan Greig / ZDNet:
Researchers detail a never-before-seen attack against Iran's train system and transport ministry from a new threat actor using a reusable wiper called Meteor  —  SentinelOne analysts were able to recreate the July 9 attack and identify the threat actor behind it.
Eric Newcomer / Newcomer:
Profile of Bessemer Venture Partners, an early investor in Twilio and Shopify, as its competition with Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, and SoftBank ramps up  —  Bessemer Venture Partners is a thoughtful firm in a world of loose money.  —  4 hr ago  —  In 2009, Ethan Kurzweil …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Neuralink, Elon Musk's brain-computer interface company, raises $205M Series C led by Vy Capital, with GV and others participating  —  In addition to SpaceX and Tesla, Neuralink is another Elon Musk company.  Focused on building a brain machine interface, Neuralink today announced …
More: Bloomberg and Neuralink
Jordan Fabian / Bloomberg:
More than 90 CEOs, including Cook, Pichai, Jassy, and Zuckerberg, urge Congress to ensure citizenship for Dreamers, after a judge ruled against the program  —  - More than 90 executives seek legal status for Dreamers  — They say allowing citizenship would give U.S. economic boost
Michail / GSMArena.com:
Motorola announces the Edge 20, 20 Pro, and 20 Lite for Europe, Latin America, and Asia, coming in August with prices starting from €349.99  —  A trio of new Motorola phones was announced with the Edge 20 Pro, Edge 20 and Edge 20 Lite.  The Pro model brings a flagship specs sheet …
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Pinterest misses on user growth in Q2, with 454M MAUs vs. 482M est., as revenue beats, with $613M, up 125%+ YoY, vs. $562.1M est.; stock down ~14% after hours  —  - The company declined to provide third-quarter guidance on monthly active user due to the unknown impact of Covid-19 variants.
Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
Profile of Israeli surveillance startup Paragon, funded with $5-10M from US-based Battery, which sources say allows police to hack encrypted messaging apps  —  Paragon Solutions doesn't have a website.  There's very little information at all about them online, even if the Tel Aviv-based …
Kieran Leavitt / Toronto Star:
Canada proposes the creation of a digital safety commissioner role to oversee violations of new harmful online content rules and issue penalties to platforms  —  The Liberal government has proposed a vast new system that would be tailored to ensure illegal content, such as child pornography and hate-speech …
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Twitter announces updates to Spaces which will let users tweet directly from the Space; iOS users will be able to search for live and upcoming Spaces  —  another update that makes the audio feature easier to share and discover.  Now, users will be able to compose a new tweet directly from the Space …
Harmeet Singh Walia / Counterpoint Research:
Global smartphone market grew 19% YoY in Q2 with 329M units shipped, led by Samsung with 58M units, Xiaomi with 53M, Apple with 49M, and Oppo with 34M  —  - Global smartphone market grew 19% YoY but declined by 7% QoQ as 329 million units were shipped, led by Samsung.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Nothing Ear (1) wireless earbuds review: comfortable, unique transparent design and lots of features, but buggy performance and so-so noise cancellation  —  Standout design, noise cancellation, and wireless charging for $99  —  There's a lot riding on the Ear 1 wireless earbuds …

Sponsor Posts

TELUS Digital:
See how your customer experience priorities compare  —  TELUS Digital surveyed leaders about the tech they're investing in, the KPIs they're tracking and their plans for outsourcing.  Get the results.  No form fill required!
Intel:
Intel Delivers powerful CPUs for AI and Networking  —  With the onset of AI, businesses demand powerful and efficient CPUs.  Explore new Intel Xeon 6 processors, for the broadest set of workloads with leadership performance and lower TCO.
Zoho:
Introducing new capabilities in Zoho PDF Editor: Add watermarks, secure your content, collect digital signatures, and more  —  Easily organize, edit, and secure your PDFs with the latest version …
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:
Has Intel Found A Way Out?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Hard Fork:
Tech Stock Shock + Solving the Mystery of OpenAI's "Blip" + Tinder's Flirt-Off
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.
BG2 Pod:
Liberation Day, Tariffs, US v China Open Source, OpenAI Fundraise, $CRWV, TikTok
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
What AI anime memes tell us about the future of art and humanity
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Great Chat:
Battle of the startup cities
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.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Zach Weinberg (Co-Founder & CEO, Curie.Bio) on The Tariff Trap, Self-Inflicted Recession Risk, and Open AI's Fundraise
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:50 PM ET, July 29, 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

Jon Porter / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Patrick Klepek / VICE:
Wall Street Journal: