Techmeme
March 4, 2021, 2:10 PM

Top News

Katherine Rosman / New York Times:
Square acquires a majority stake in Jay-Z's streaming service Tidal for $297M; Jay-Z will join Square's board  —  What did Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey talk about when they went yachting around the Hamptons together last summer?  Perhaps only Beyoncé knows.  —  Maybe now we do, too.
Bloomberg:
UK antitrust authorities say they plan to investigate Apple's App Store to probe whether it is abusing its market power to restrict competition  —  - CMA taking into account Apple's ‘dominant’ position in apps  — Apple probe prompted by complaints from some developers
Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:
Sources: EU is set to press antitrust charges against Apple over App Store rules for competing music streaming services, following a complaint by Spotify  —  Brussels set to formally press charges alleging tech company used its dominance to squeeze out App Store rivals
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Facebook adds one-to-one voice and video calling to the WhatsApp desktop app, but the browser version, WhatsApp Web, is not getting this feature at the moment  —  WhatsApp is rolling out support for voice and video calling to its desktop app, the Facebook-owned messaging service said Thursday …
Gilad Edelman / Wired:
Study: far-right pubs get 65% more engagement on Facebook when they publish fake news; liberal and centrist pubs get less engagement if they publish misinfo  —  Far-right pages that publish misinformation get the most interactions by far compared to other news sources, new research shows.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Leaked images show Sonos Roam, the company's smallest portable speaker, expected to ship on April 20 for $169  —  You're looking at the first images of the next speaker from Sonos.  Set to be priced at $169, the new device — it's called the Sonos Roam — is much smaller than the Sonos Move …
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Virtual events startup Hopin raises $400M at a $5.65B valuation, more than double its valuation in its November round  —  - Hopin says it's raised $400 million at a $5.65 billion valuation, more than double what it was worth in a November investment round.  — The latest financing round …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Nintendo plans to unveil a new Switch model in 2021 that will come with 7-inch 720p Samsung OLED display, and support 4K graphics when docked with TVs  —  - Samsung Display will start production of 7-inch panels in June  — Gaming giant aims to propel Switch against the Xbox and PS5
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Google promises it will not build alternate identifiers to track users after phasing out third-party tracking cookies  —  Google says it wants a ‘privacy-first web’  —  Google is slowly phasing out third-party tracking cookies, and today, it's making it clear that it won't just replace …
Samantha Hissong / Rolling Stone:
Kings of Leon to be one of the first bands to debut an album as part of an NFT package, with tokens unlocking perks like limited-edition vinyl and concert seats  —  The band's revolutionary tokens will unlock special perks like limited-edition vinyl and front row seats to future concerts
New York Times:
Amazon has significantly expanded its footprint in NYC, where ~2.4M packages are delivered daily, adding at least nine warehouses in the city in the past year  —  The e-commerce giant added at least nine new warehouses in the city over the past year as 2.4 million packages a day strained the nation's largest urban delivery system.
Ashley Gold / Axios:
Sources: Microsoft president Brad Smith will testify before a House antitrust subcommittee hearing next Friday about tech antitrust and the news media  —  Microsoft president Brad Smith will testify before a House antitrust subcommittee hearing next Friday about tech antitrust and the news media …
Sarah Butler / The Guardian:
Amazon opens its first cashierless store outside of the US with an Amazon Fresh location in London, UK  —  Store in Ealing, west London, is available to Prime members who must scan in phone code to enter  —  Amazon has opened its first contactless grocery store in the UK today where shoppers …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google says it is speeding up the Chrome release cycle and will ship a new milestone every four weeks instead of the current six weeks  —  Google today announced that its Chrome browser is moving to a faster release cycle by shipping a new milestone every four weeks instead of the current six-week cycle …

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