Techmeme
February 24, 2021, 9:25 PM

Top News

Daniel Van Boom / CNET:
Australia passes news bargaining code that will require digital platforms like Google and Facebook to pay local media outlets and publishers for their content  —  Australia on Wednesday passed a new media law that had generated noisy pushback from internet giants Google and Facebook …
Nick Clegg / About Facebook:
Facebook defends its stance in Australia, says it invested $600M since 2018 to support the news industry and plans at least $1B more over the next three years  —  Last week, in a move that will have felt abrupt and dramatic to many, Facebook announced it was stopping the sharing of news on its service in Australia.
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Tech retailer Fry's Electronics announces it will cease operations effective immediately, blames industry changes and the pandemic for the shutdown  —  Your best buys are no longer at Fry's, guaranteed  —  Fry's Electronics, one of the last big brick-and-mortar electronics store chains …
Maggie Fitzgerald / CNBC:
GameStop shares closed up nearly 104% on Wednesday, halting twice for volatility; GameStop said on Tuesday its CFO will resign; stock up 80%+ after hours  —  - GameStop announced Tuesday that its chief financial officer Jim Bell will resign on March 26.  — Sources familiar …
Scott Chipolina / Decrypt:
Business intelligence firm MicroStrategy buys 19,452 Bitcoin, worth $1.0261B, and now holds ~90K Bitcoin, worth ~$4.5B at current prices  —  Business intelligence firm MicroStrategy has purchased 19,452 Bitcoin, worth $1.026 billion, at an average price of $52,765.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTube to roll out a “supervised” account option in beta in the coming months in more than 80 countries, aimed at kids that are too old for YouTube Kids  —  YouTube is launching a PG version of the internet's biggest video service.  —  A new “supervised” YouTube account option …
Alex Leary / Wall Street Journal:
Biden signs executive order mandating a 100-day review of supply chains, including for semiconductors used in products from cars to phones and rare-earth metals  —  The president signed an executive order with the aim of eventually increasing domestic production of critical materials
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Amazon says its Luna cloud gaming service is available to try for free in the US on select Fire TV devices, after launching as invite-only last year  —  And anyone in the US can also buy a Luna Controller  —  Amazon's cloud-gaming service, Luna, is now available to try for free in the US …
ProPublica:
Emails show how Facebook responded to requests by Turkey to censor content during the authoritarian government's 2018 military offensive against Kurds  —  Amid a 2018 Turkish military campaign, Facebook ultimately sided with Turkey's demand to block the page of a mostly Kurdish militia.
Stephanie Condon / ZDNet:
Nvidia beats with Q4 revenue of $5B vs. $4.8B expected, up 61% YoY, data center revenue of $1.9B, up 97% YoY, and gaming revenue of $2.5B, up 67% YoY  —  The GPU maker beat Q4 market expectations with record sales in its two key areas of business.  —  Nvidia on Wednesday published fourth …
Bloomberg:
FCC reveals that for its 5G licenses auction, Verizon spent the most of any carrier with $45.5B, followed by AT&T with $23.4B, and T-Mobile with $9.3B  —  - AT&T is second at $23 billion in bids, followed by T-Mobile  — FCC releases results of so-called C-band airwaves sale
Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios:
Source: Dispo, a retro photo sharing app co-founded by YouTube star David Dobrik, raises $20M Series A led by Spark Capital at a $200M valuation  —  Dispo, a retro photo-sharing app co-founded by YouTube star David Dobrik, recently raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Spark Capital …
Taylor Lyles / The Verge:
HP says it is acquiring gaming peripheral company HyperX for $425M, giving the company a major foothold in the gaming accessory market  —  The acquisition means HP owns the HyperX brand  —  HP has announced that it is acquiring gaming peripheral company HyperX for $425 million.
Michael McSweeney / The Block:
Optimism, which plans to help scale the Ethereum blockchain with a Layer 2 protocol, raises $25M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz  —  Optimism, a startup focused on the scalability of the Ethereum blockchain network, has raised a $25 million Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Jeff Cox / CNBC:
US Federal Reserve's systems that let banks send money back and forth went down for several hours, impacting its automated clearinghouse system and more  —  Fed operational error brings down payment system  —  The Federal Reserve's system that allows financial institutions to send money …
Alfred Ng / The Markup:
Auditing of algorithms can help address bias but there needs to be industry standards/regulations to hold the auditors or the companies that use them to account  —  For more than a decade, journalists and researchers have been writing about the dangers of relying on algorithms to make weighty decisions …
Tim Anderson / The Register:
Google says it has been sponsoring two full-time Linux developers at the Linux Foundation for years to improve security and hopes other companies will follow  —  Plus: Why the Chocolate Factory only uses code it builds from source  —  Interview Worried about the security of Linux and open-source code …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google Cloud unveils Autopilot, an operating mode for its Kubernetes Engine that turns over management of its clusters to Google's engineers and automated tools  —  Google Cloud today announced a new operating mode for its Kubernetes Engine (GKE) that turns over the management …

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Tom Warren / The Verge:
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