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February 23, 2021, 7:40 PM
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Georgia Hitch / ABC:
Australia says Facebook agreed to reinstate news content in Australia in the coming days after the government promised amendments to its proposed media bill  —  Facebook will walk back its block on Australian users sharing news on its site after the government agreed to make amendments …
Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:
Facebook's Australia news ban shows tech giants don't mind giving up money to appease regulators and business, but will not give up control over platforms  —  [Warning: Violent and gruesome metaphor ahead.]  —  In The Usual Suspects (1995), there's a scene in which the true extent …
Alex Barker / Financial Times:
Microsoft partners with EU publishing lobbyists to push for payment for news content amid Australia's effort to force Facebook and Google to share their revenue
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google announces new features for Android, including a way to schedule texts and a Password Checkup tool to notify users of compromised credentials  —  Google today announced the next set of features coming to Android, including a new password checkup tool, a way to schedule your texts …
Selena Deckelmann / The Mozilla Blog:
New Firefox update adds support for multiple picture-in-picture windows and “Total Cookie Protection”, to prevent the use of cookies to track users across sites  —  Beginning last year, the internet began playing a bigger role in our lives than ever before.
Square - Investor Relations:
Square announces it spent $170M to acquire 3,318 bitcoins at an average price of $51,236, following its earlier $50M bet on the cryptocurrency  —  Square also announced a $170 million purchase in bitcoin as part of its ongoing commitment to the cryptocurrency
Emily Bary / MarketWatch:
Square beats in Q4 with revenue of $3.16B vs estimates of $3.10B, up from $1.31B a year earlier, with $1.76B revenue from bitcoin and Cash app revenue of $416M
Stephen Warwick / iMore:
Some M1 Mac owners report a worryingly large number of writes to their Macs' SSDs, though in some cases it could be explained by faulty monitoring tools  —  “If this is accurate, some of these machines aren't going to last half a year”  —  What you need to know
Josh Sisco / The Information:
Sources: the DOJ is investigating if Apple's use of its “Sign in with Apple” button makes it more difficult for users to switch to a rival device maker  —  More and more iPhone apps are offering people the option of signing up by using information stored with Apple …
Nikkei Asia:
Draft executive order from Biden admin orders development of a US supply chain strategy less reliant on China, focused on chips, batteries, rare-earth metals  —  Exclusive: Biden to sign presidential order to bolster chip, battery and rare-earth industries  —  WASHINGTON/TAIPEI …
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Q&A with Spotify's Daniel Ek on growing the number of creators on the service and engaging with them, podcast success metrics, Clubhouse, and more  —  Spotify hosted an event on Monday to discuss its ambitions in audio, and one message came through loud and clear: the company wants to play …
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Kuo: Apple plans to release two new MacBook Pro models with an HDMI port and an SD card reader in the second half of 2021  —  Apple plans to release two new MacBook Pro models equipped with an HDMI port and SD card reader in the second half of 2021, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo …
Cecilia Kang / New York Times:
FCC proposes using $3.2B in emergency funds to subsidize broadband services for low-income families with discounts worth $50/month, or $75/month on tribal lands  —  A proposal released by the acting chairwoman of the commission is an attempt to close the digital divide.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Quill, a messaging app that raised its Index Ventures-led $12.5M Series A in 2019, quietly comes out of stealth to take on Slack  —  Slack took the workplace communications landscape by storm after it launched its integration-friendly, GIF-tastic chat platform in 2013.
More: 9to5Mac
Gene Park / Washington Post:
Sony says it's developing a VR headset for the PlayStation 5 that will be much less cumbersome than its current PS VR setup, but the device won't launch in 2021  —  The PlayStation 5 will have its own virtual reality headset, however, consumers may face ongoing difficulties obtaining a PS5 console given a supply chain shortfall.
Tim Copeland / Decrypt:
Bitfinex and Tether agree to an $18.5M settlement with the New York AG and will stop operating in the state following a two-year probe  —  Bitfinex and Tether have agreed to stop all trading activity in the state of New York as part of a settlement announced today by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Akamai finds a botnet using bitcoin transactions to put its control server's IP address on the blockchain, making it basically impossible to fully take down  —  Wallet transactions camouflage the IP address of the botnet's control server.  —  When hackers corral infected computers into a botnet …
More: The Akamai Blog.  Tweets: @stillinbeta
Hirsh Chitkara / Protocol:
Inside Chess.com's streaming success, with Twitch users watching 18.3M hours of chess content in January, nearly as much as they consumed throughout all of 2019  —  There's something inherently perverse in calling chess “open source.”  It's a bit like saying France “pivoted” …
Mathieu Rosemain / Reuters:
Sources: a 93-page report from French antitrust investigators says Google breached government orders on how to negotiate with news publishers over copyright  —  PARIS (Reuters) - French antitrust investigators have accused Google of failing to comply with the state competition authority's orders …
See also Mediagazer
The Information:
Source: ~40%, or 40M, of Disney+ subscribers are in the US, and Disney has said 30% are in India, so Europe and LatAm seem to make up less than a third of subs  —  Disney's flagship video-streaming service, Disney+, has quickly emerged as the only true competitor to Netflix …
Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch:
Reddit says it has raised a $116M Series E extension, after raising $250M earlier this month  —  Reddit, which announced a $250 million Series E earlier this month, has added over $116 million to the financing event, upping the round's most recent total to $367 million, according to a new SEC filing.
Patrick Tucker / Defense One:
Report details how China is using tech products, market foothold, and training, to create dependencies in Indonesia, South Korea, UAE, Israel, and Poland  —  Beijing is using technology products, markets, and training to secure influence with U.S. security partners, a IISS report finds.
Eugene Wei / Remains of the Day:
TikTok's networks effects, driven by remixability of content and features that interconnect, can't be easily cloned by rivals who wish to recreate its ecosystem  —  I promised one final piece on TikTok, focused primarily on the network effects of creativity.  And this is that, in part.

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:40 PM ET, February 23, 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

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
A New York judge finds Sirius XM liable for a difficult subscription cancellation process; Sirius says it will appeal but abide by a new “click-to-cancel” rule

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
A growing number of podcasters, including Tim Ferriss, are moving away from interviews to monologues or co-hosts, as some well-known guests can be overexposed

Matthew Keys / The Desk:
DirecTV terminates its Dish acquisition after a group of Dish creditors rejected a modified bond exchange offer

More News

Earlier Picks

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Plume, which develops an AI-powered adaptive home Wi-Fi mesh network system, raises $270M Series E at a $1.35B valuation, bringing its total raised to $397M
Zachary Fryer-Biggs / Washington Post:
As autonomous war tech advances, the US military must confront complex ethical issues, like how much control to give machines to kill on the battlefield
Mickey Rapkin / Esquire:
Profile of Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple, who has made millions of dollars by selling and auctioning his digital art on marketplaces for non-fungible tokens
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