Techmeme
February 5, 2021, 1:40 PM

Top News

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Google has patched an actively exploited zero-day vulnerability in its Chrome 88 update  —  Google Chrome 88.0.4324.150 released with a fix.  Users advised to update.  —  Google has released today version 88.0.4324.150 of the Chrome browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Megan Graham / CNBC:
Snap says Apple's changes to IDFA will interrupt demand; Unity says IDFA changes will affect how mobile game developers “optimize lifetime customer value”  —  - Snap and Unity Software, which reported fourth quarter earnings after the bell Thursday, both warned of the upcoming impact …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Ben Gilbert / Insider:
Mark Zuckerberg made a surprise appearance on Clubhouse on Thursday, discussing VR, AR, Facebook's Reality Labs group, and remote work  —  - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared on a Clubhouse talk show on Thursday evening.  — Zuckerberg appeared on The Good Times Show, a talk show on the buzzy new social networking app.
Ashwin Manikandan / The Economic Times:
PayPal says it will wind down its domestic payment operations in India by April 1 and focus on its existing cross-border trade business  —  Mumbai: PayPal Inc. will wind down its payment operations in India this year, a spokesperson said on the condition of anonymity.
Michelle Chan / Nikkei Asia:
Users in mainland China are flocking to Clubhouse, a rare space outside the country's firewall where they can speak freely with people from Hong Kong and Taiwan  —  Audio-based social-media platform becomes free-speech haven for mainland users  —  The Clubhouse app had two million users globally as of Jan. 24.
Emily Birnbaum / Protocol:
Democratic senators' SAFE TECH Act will strip Section 230 immunity for any ads, and posts violating civil rights, antitrust, cyberstalking, human rights laws  —  Three top Democratic senators added to the stack of proposed Section 230 reforms Friday, introducing their own bill …
Bloomberg:
Shares of Kuaishou jumped 161% in its Hong Kong debut, valuing the company at $159B, after the main rival of ByteDance in China raised $5.4B in an IPO  —  - Tencent-backed short-video startup raised $5.4 billion in IPO  — Debut performance is second best globally after Alibaba.com
Cherlynn Low / Engadget:
Google says Pixel users will be able to use their phone cameras to measure pulse and breath rates through the Google Fit app, starting next month  —  Like many of us, Google is getting more interested in our health.  The company is announcing today new features that will allow …
Chris Metinko / Crunchbase News:
Metalenz, a Boston-based Harvard spinout developing meta-optic lens chips, raises $10M Series A from 3M Ventures, Intel Capital, and others  —  Metalenz, a developer of meta-optic technologies for new lenses, has secured a $10 million Series A as the company looks to exit stealth …
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Snap says its TikTok competitor Spotlight had 100M MAUs in January, two months after its launch, and receives an average of 175K video submissions per day  —  A surprisingly successful debut  —  Snap says its TikTok competitor, Spotlight, had 100 million users in January 2021, just two months after it launched.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google starts rolling out Google News Showcase in Australia, paying local and regional publishers, amid an ongoing dispute over Australia's proposed media rules  —  Google has a $1 billion plan to pay publishers for content that appears in a cross-service “News Showcase” product.
Hamish McKenzie / Substack Blog:
Substack co-founder says Facebook and Twitter getting into paid newsletters is a positive thing for writers and the media ecosystem, implores them to go all in  —  When Twitter announced that it had acquired the email newsletter provider Revue to create a Substack competitor, I tweeted a smartass response:
Alex Kantrowitz / Big Technology:
Apptopia: since Trump was banned from Twitter, daily use of Twitter has remained remarkably consistent  —  Trump's presence on Twitter had no impact on how much people used it, contrary to the popular narrative. … For as long as Donald Trump was president, there was a common misconception that Twitter's fate was tied to his.

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
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:
CIO challenge 5: Can we find an effective solution that also minimizes operational costs?  —  Welcome to the next and final installment of our CIO series!  After what feels like a thousand cups of coffee …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 11/21 - What The DOJ Wants Google To Do
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 1:40 PM ET, February 5, 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

Chris Stokel-Walker / WIRED UK:
Felix Salmon / Axios:

Earlier Picks

Josh Eidelson / Bloomberg:
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Kyle Bradshaw / 9to5Google:
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Lauren Kaori Gurley / VICE:
Kristen V Brown / Bloomberg:
Ryan Tracy / Wall Street Journal:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch: