Techmeme
February 17, 2021, 2:10 PM

Top News

William Easton / About Facebook:
Facebook will “restrict publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content”, in response to proposed media law  —  In response to Australia's proposed new Media Bargaining law, Facebook will restrict publishers and people in Australia …
News Corp:
News Corp announces a multi-year, global partnership with Google to provide content from its news sites “in return for significant payments by Google”  —  Long-term Deal Involves Payment For Premium Content For Google News Showcase;  —  Will Yield Substantial Benefits For Journalism And Society
Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:
Epic Games files a formal antitrust complaint against Apple with the European Commission, claiming that Apple imposes commercially unviable burdens on rivals  —  Filing is latest shot in escalating feud between ‘Fortnite’ developer and Silicon Valley giant  —  Epic Games has filed …
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Google Maps now lets users pay for public transportation and parking by integrating Passport and ParkMobile services into its app, available in 400+ US cities  —  Fill your meter or get a train ticket  —  Google Maps is adding a couple of new useful features: the ability to pay for parking or buy a train ticket right from the app.
Aditya Kalra / Reuters:
Internal docs: Amazon India has secretly favored big sellers, misrepresented its ties with them, and used them to circumvent tough foreign investment rules  —  NEW DELHI (Reuters) - It was early 2019, and senior Amazon.com Inc executive Jay Carney was preparing for an important meeting.
Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:
DOJ announces charges against three North Korean hackers for conspiring to steal and extort over $1.3B in cash and cryptocurrencies from banks and businesses  —  The Justice Department on Wednesday unsealed charges against three North Korean hacker spies accused of conspiring to steal …
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
Researcher finds one of the first examples of malware written to run natively on Apple's M1 chips; the GoSearch22 adware installs itself as a Safari extension  —  A security researcher found one of the first examples of malware written to run natively on Apple's M1 processors.  —  Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai
Babu Mohan / Android Central:
Twitter starts testing voice DMs, which can be up to 140 seconds long, on iOS in India, Brazil, and Japan  —  Twitter is giving its users “more options to express themselves” in conversations.  —  What you need to know  — Twitter is testing a voice messaging feature for direct messages.
Karen Weise / New York Times:
NY AG sues Amazon, alleging it inadequately protected workers from COVID-19 in Staten Island and Queens, and retaliated against employees who raised concerns  —  The case focuses on two of the company's facilities in New York.  —  New York's attorney general, Letitia James …
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
YouTube says it will expand Shorts, its TikTok rival in beta, to the US soon, add 4K and DVR to YouTube TV, expand in-video shopping, and more in 2021  —  YouTube has a host of big product updates coming this year, and it just detailed a lot of them in a blog post from Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan.
Todd Haselton / CNBC:
Amazon announces Build It, a Kickstarter-like program that lets customers vote on products and says it will build those that get enough support within 30 days  —  - A new program from Amazon called Build It lets customers choose to back a new product, and if it gets enough support within 30 days, Amazon will build it.
Emil Protalinski / GeekWire:
IDC: Chrome OS market share passed macOS for the first time in 2020, up 4.4 points YoY to 10.8%; Windows fell 4.9 points to 80.5%, macOS rose 0.8 point to 7.5%  —  New numbers show 2020 was the first year that Chromebooks outsold Macs, posting impressive market share gains at the expense of Windows.
Peter Smith / Blockchain.com:
Blockchain.com raises $120M growth round from Moore Strategic Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and others and says 65M wallets have been created  —  Today we're excited to share that Blockchain.com has closed on a strategic financing round, securing $120M from some of the world's leading macro investors.
Danielle Bochove / Bloomberg:
Shopify beats estimates with Q4 revenue of $977.7M, up 94% YoY, profit of $504.4M, up 91% YoY, and Gross Merchandise Volume of $41.1B, up 99% YoY  —  - Company says it will ‘aggressively’ reinvest in products  — Gross merchandise value nearly doubles in 4Q to $41.1 billion
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Uber hires author and labor researcher Alex Rosenblat, who wrote a book criticizing Uber's treatment of workers, to help improve its relations with drivers  —  - The “Uberland” author will advocate for drivers internally  — The company has a strained relationship with academics
Cathy Applefeld Olson / Forbes:
20 music streaming services have paid $424M+ in historical unmatched royalties to Mechanical Licensing Collective; Apple paid $163M, Spotify $153M, Amazon $42M  —  The Mechanical Licensing Collective has received a total of $424.38 million in accrued historical unmatched royalties …
Jeremy Burge / Emojipedia:
A look at the new 217 new emojis coming in iOS 14.5, including a syringe without blood, couples with a mix of skin tones, AirPod Max headphones, and more  —  New emojis have arrived on iOS as part of the latest iOS 14.5 beta.  These include a heart on fire, exhaling face, and gender options for the people with beards.
Daisuke Wakabayashi / New York Times:
Profile of Corey Quinn, a “cloud economist” who consults for AWS clients like WaPo and Epic on cloud computing costs and often lampoons Amazon on Twitter  —  Corey Quinn has made it his business to understand Amazon's cloud-computing charges and have some fun at the company's expense.
The Block:
Sources: Coinbase facilitated Tesla's $1.5B bitcoin purchase during the first week of February; source says Coinbase has 5+ Fortune 500 companies as clients  —  Coinbase, the U.S.-based crypto exchange, has been helping large companies invest in bitcoin.  The Block has learned that Tesla …

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