Techmeme: Filing in AGs' lawsuit against Google: the Play Store hit revenues of $11.2B in 2019, with $8.5B in gross profit and an operating margin of over 62% (Paresh Dave/Reuters)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise

August 29, 2021, 9:10 PM

Top News

Hartley Charlton / MacRumors:

Kuo: iPhone 13 hardware could support LEO satellite communications; Apple may work with Globalstar to enable connectivity when not in 4G/5G range — The iPhone 13 will feature low earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication connectivity to allow users to make calls and send messages …

More: 9to5Mac, CNET, AppleInsider, Gizmodo, The Verge, iThinkDifferent, SiliconANGLE, Tailosive Tech/YouTube, iPhone in Canada Blog, phonearena.com, Mashable, MSPoweruser, Gizchina, iPhone Hacks, Engadget, PCMag, TechSpot, iClarified, and Forbes

Tweets: @saschasegan, @saschasegan, @rjonesy, @tailosivetech, @khaost, @jioriku, @kfury, @detroitborg, @maccaw, @saranbyte, @elidourado, @brianroemmele, @zollotech, and @ihacktu

Andrew Hayward / Decrypt:

Jack Dorsey and Mike Brock say Square's TBD is building a Bitcoin-centric decentralized exchange for digital assets — Square's Cash App is a popular way for people to buy and sell Bitcoin, but CEO Jack Dorsey's love for the leading cryptocurrency is immense—and the financial services firm plans to do a lot more in the space.

More: The Daily Hodl, BitcoinExchangeGuide, Blockworks, The Block, Benzinga, Crypto Briefing, Cointelegraph, and Bitcoin News

Tweets: @brockm, @jack, @brockm, @apompliano, @fedmarket_, @ldrogen, @icodrops, @techleadhd, and @brockm

Bloomberg:

China starts a two-month campaign to crack down on websites and social media accounts that post financial information that “maliciously bad-mouths” its economy — China kicked off a two-month campaign to crack down on commercial platforms and social media accounts …

More: Reuters and Bloomberg

Tweets: @kendraschaefer, @mbrookerhk, @hancocktom, @____achan_____, @ajphelo, @nomos46, @silvermanjacob, @silvermanjacob, @jchengwsj, @hosseeb, @el33th4xor, @justinhendrix, and @lisaabramowicz1

Paresh Dave / Reuters:

Filing in AGs' lawsuit against Google: the Play Store hit revenues of $11.2B in 2019, with $8.5B in gross profit and an operating margin of over 62% — Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google generated $11.2 billion in revenue from its mobile app store in 2019, according to a court filing unsealed on Saturday …

More: The Verge, Engadget, iPhone in Canada Blog, Gizchina, The Economic Times, Thurrott, phonearena.com, and AppleInsider

Tweets: @jasonlk, @ourielohayon, @pilky, and @jesse_squires. Thanks:@peard33

E&T Magazine:

New research suggests the internet is not making people who engage in political discussions online more aggressive, but makes their behavior more visible — New research suggests that the internet is not responsible for making people become more aggressive when engaging in political discussions online …

Source: PsyArXiv Preprints. More: Gizmodo and HotHardware

Tweets: @jasonkenney, @v21, @holden, @rachel_thorn_en, @chrisdyork, @watchingtvnfilm, @larsiusprime, @tero_hoo, @m_b_petersen, @catalinagoanta, @helenreflects, @rubi_, @roslyntalusan, @mattgrossmann, @m_b_petersen, and @lilithsaintcrow

Bloomberg:

S. Korea is expected to be the first country to pass a law to prevent app stores from mandating first-party IAP payment systems; assembly vote on 8/30 is likely — - New law will mandate free choice of app payment providers — Silicon Valley giants argue privacy, security under threat

Tweets: @business

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:

Sources: Apple Watch Series 7 will get a flat edged design with 41mm and 45mm displays, and multiple new watch faces to take advantage of the larger sizes — This is the free version of Power On. If you like it, consider subscribing to Bloomberg.com — you'll receive this newsletter several hours earlier …

More: 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, AppleInsider, Engadget, 9to5Mac, Benzinga, MacRumors, Wccftech, iThinkDifferent, Wccftech, and AppleTrack

Tweets: @pinboard, @zollotech, @markgurman, @can, and @justsimplyja

Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:

Apple's “clarifications” as part of its settlement will not make much of a difference in the long run for developers or to how the App Store actually works — Apple isn't changing how the App Store works because Apple doesn't want it to change — Apple made waves this week …

Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:

CryptoSlam: CryptoPunks, an NFT platform with 10K pixel portraits, crossed $1B in transaction volume, with the cheapest artwork available for sale costing $450K — Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review! Last week we dove into Bezos's Blue Origin suing NASA.

More: Decrypt. Tweets: @turnernovak, @alex, @seldo, @gmoneynft, @j__liang, and @joshconstine

Benedict Evans:

Many internet privacy proposals circulating today are in direct conflict with those to increase market competition, as they would further entrench big platforms — The consumer internet industry spent two decades building a huge, complex, chaotic pile of tools and systems to track and analyse …

Tweets: @matthew_d_green, @sgtholly, @matthew_d_green, @sub8u, @dwellington, @benedictevans, and @benedictevans

Gené Teare / Crunchbase News:

Analysis: a record 19 fintech startups in Europe have become unicorns in 2021 so far, bringing the total number of fintech unicorns on the continent to 39 — At the start of 2021, Europe had just one decacorn—a startup valued at $10 billion or more—in the fintech sector to speak of …

Tweets: @nicholaskatz and @chris_skinner

Will Douglas Heaven / MIT Technology Review:

Tel Aviv-based startup Hour One is paying people to use their likenesses to create AI-voiced characters for marketing and educational videos for its clients — AI-powered characters based on real people can star in thousands of videos and say anything, in any language.

Tweets: @strwbilly, @timsowula, @pomeranian99, @carolhtucker, @giano, @funnymonkey, @combsthepoet, @iwillleavenow, @farahshoucair, @i_m_shweta, @domwitczak, @hackermaderas, @mat, and @hypervisible

Sponsor Posts

TELUS Digital:

Are you ready for the era of agentic AI? — Tech leaders are always talking about what's next, and right now, agentic AI is dominating the discourse. Equip yourself with the info you need in this recorded webinar.

Tribe AI:

State of AI: Adoption, Challenges and Recommendations — Examining the current state of AI, the key challenges organizations face, and practical recommendations for utilizing AI integration alongside other best practices.

Zoho:

Introducing captions, dynamic cross-references, table of tables and figures, and more in Zoho Writer — Easily ensure that your documents—reports, manuals, research papers, or thesis—are neatly structured …

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.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Channels with Peter Kafka:

NYT publisher AG Sulzberger on Trump, OpenAi and the economy

Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.

Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.

Techmeme Ride Home:

It's Already Starting...

The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.

Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.

Sponsor this podcast

Spotlight On:

Corelight's Brian Dye on What He's Learned About Scaling

A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.

Subscribe to Spotlight On.

Invest Like the Best:

Michael Ovitz - Turning Potential into Prominence

The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

Decoder with Nilay Patel:

UiPath CEO Daniel Dines on AI agents replacing our jobs

A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.

Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.

Grit:

Brex 3.0: Inside the Radical Turnaround with Pedro Franceschi

Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.

Subscribe to Grit.

Add your postcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:10 PM ET, August 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.

From Mediagazer

Andrew Goudsward / Reuters:

A US judge orders the White House to lift access restrictions imposed on the AP while the AP's lawsuit moves forward

Joshua Rothman / New Yorker:

How AI could hollow out the media business, which employed under 50K US journalists in 2023, while enhancing some news reporting, including by processing data

Josh Xiao / Bloomberg:

Two influential Chinese bloggers say China is considering a ban on Hollywood movies as part of a set of measures to retaliate against Trump's tariffs

Upcoming Tech Events

Paris Blockchain Week

LAUNCH Music Conference & Festival

Earnings: INTC, MBLY, LG Electronics

Earnings: SNAP, PYPL, SPOT

Apr 29-30

Startup Grind Global Conference

Silicon Valley, CA

Apr 30

Earnings: META, Samsung Electronics

Jensen Huang Keynote at COMPUTEX

Google I/O REGISTER NOW

More News

Anna Kramer / Protocol:

Interview with Apple engineer Cher Scarlett, who has become the face of the #AppleToo movement, a group that wants to shed light on workplace issues at Apple

Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:

EU's data protection supervisor recommends that personal data such as search queries and browsing history should not be used for the assessment of credit scores

Tweets: @carnage4life, @cubicleapril, @hypervisible, and @campuscodi

New York Times:

Didi, which grew by moving in regulatory gray zones before the US IPO, became a bellwether for how far China is ready to go in Big Tech crackdowns

Tweets: @zhonggg and @liyuan6

Rest of World:

BlueCity, owner of China's biggest gay dating app Blued, is navigating a precarious environment for LGBTQI orgs by positioning itself as a sexual health service

Tweets: @decka227, @anupkaphle, @aurorachaang, @williamyang120, @lmatsakis, @lmatsakis, and @lmatsakis

Bloomberg:

Customer-relations management software provider Freshworks files for an IPO, looking to raise $100M; Freshworks was last valued at $3.5B in 2019

More: The Economic Times. Tweets: @avlesh, @varunkrish, @sang1983, and @dhruvilsanghvi

Joe Guszkowski / Restaurant Business:

Toast, a cloud management software provider for restaurants, files its S-1, reports it had $494M ARR at the end of June, up 118% YoY, and $38B in GPV

More: Securities and Exchange Commission, Restaurant Dive, Boston Business Journal, TheStreet, MarketWatch, Reuters, and The Boston Globe

Earlier Picks

Nikkei Asia:

China says it has surpassed 1B internet users for the first time, up 8% from 2020; internet penetration rose to 71.6% and delivery services rose to 468M users

More: Gizchina, CHINAdaily, and Global Times. Tweets: @zhugeex

Kate Rooney / CNBC:

Amazon partners with Affirm to roll out monthly installments for purchases over $50 to some US customers; Affirm stock is up ~30% after hours

Lauren Feiner / CNBC:

The City of Chicago sues DoorDash and Grubhub for allegedly deceiving customers and using unfair business practices

More: City of Chicago, The Verge, Eater Chicago, Mashable, PCMag, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Business, Chicago Sun Times, CNET, The Hill, Gizmodo, Fortune, and Engadget

Kevin Breuninger / CNBC:

The House select committee investigating the January 6 riot demands records from Facebook, Twitter, Google, Reddit, TikTok, and other tech companies

More: Select Committee …, Tech Policy Press, Engadget, CNET, Reuters, The Daily Dot, CBS News, Insider, and USA Today

Tweets: @pinboard, @alexstamos, @donie, @donie, @donie, @fboversight, @queeniema52, @repjimbanks, @justinhendrix, @justinhendrix, @ricksmithshow, @jason_kint, @pinboard, @pinboard, @pinboard, @pinboard, and @axios

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft won't block users from getting Windows 11 on most old PCs if they install using ISO files, but they won't get Windows Updates, including security ones