Techmeme
March 12, 2021, 5:45 PM

Top News

Kent Walker / The Keyword:
Google says Microsoft's support of a bill for greater bargaining power for news pubs is “self-serving” and intended to distract from the SolarWinds hack  —  Google has always been committed to providing high-quality and relevant information, and to supporting the news publishers who help create it.
Brad Smith / Microsoft On the Issues:
In House hearing, Brad Smith says monetizing referral traffic has become increasingly difficult for news pubs because Google squeezes out most of the profit  —  Editor's Note: On Mar. 12, Microsoft President Brad Smith testified before the House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law.
Marco Rubio / USA Today:
Marco Rubio says he is endorsing Amazon workers' unionization efforts in Alabama because Amazon leadership is waging “culture war against working-class values”  —  Amazon is waging a culture war against working-class values and is not helping workers or our economy.
James Tarmy / Bloomberg:
MetaKovan, an anonymous digital asset investor and founder of NFT focused crypto-based investment fund Metapurse, is the buyer of the $69M Beeple NFT  —  A digital asset investor who goes by the handle Metakovan and refuses to give his full name, announced that he is the buyer …
James Vincent / The Verge:
Facebook announces a project to train its AI to understand what is happening in videos, using data from videos publicly available on Facebook  —  AI that can understand video could be put to a variety of uses  —  Teaching AI systems to understand what's happening in videos as completely …
Matt Burgess / WIRED UK:
UK Home Office confirms trial of web surveillance tool that can track users' browsing history in partnership with two unnamed ISPs and National Crime Agency  —  The Investigatory Powers Act, or Snooper's Charter, was introduced in 2016.  Now one of its most contentious surveillance tools is being secretly trialled by internet firms
BuzzFeed News:
An internal doc at Facebook, co-written by Chris Cox, aims to equip employees with rebuttals to the perception that the company's products fuel polarization  —  In a Thursday presentation, Facebook executives told employees the company isn't to blame for social division in the country.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple sues its former materials lead Simon Lancaster for allegedly stealing trade secrets and leaking them to the media  —  Apple is taking legal action against its former materials lead, Simon Lancaster, over allegedly leaking trade secrets to the media.  The lawsuit accuses Lancaster of abusing his …
Eric Martin / Bloomberg:
Sources: the Biden administration has informed some Huawei suppliers it is imposing more explicit prohibitions on the export of 5G components to the company  —  - Conditions for licensed exporters went into effect this week  — Move builds on Huawei prohibitions implemented under Trump
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Epidemic Sound, a marketplace for online creators looking for background music, raises $450M from Blackstone and EQT Growth, at a valuation of $1.4B  —  The popularity of video and other streamed content like podcasts is continuing to grow at a breakneck speed, and today a startup called Epidemic Sound …

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
State of AI: Adoption, Challenges and Recommendations  —  Examining the current state of AI, the key challenges organizations face, and practical recommendations for utilizing AI integration alongside other best practices.
SignalFire:
SignalFire raises another $1 billion to back applied AI startups  —  We build AI too.  It tracks 650M tech employees so we can help companies with recruiting and GTM across enterprise, infra, healthcare, security, and consumer.
Zoho:
5 low-cost strategies to grow your ecommerce  —  This is a guest post by Ani Asatryan, Senior Content Writer of Ucraft.The best-kept secrets in ecommerce aren't secret at all—they're hiding in plain sight.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
OpenAI Shopping?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Spotlight On:
*S3 Feature* Transcend's Kate Parker on putting data back into the hands of users in an AI-driven world
A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.
Subscribe to Spotlight On.
Invest Like the Best:
Cliff Sosin - Investing in Carvana
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Grit:
From White House to Wall Street: David Rubenstein
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
Inside monday.com's transformation: radical transparency, impact over output, and their path to $1B ARR | Daniel Lereya (Chief Product and Technology Officer)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:45 PM ET, March 12, 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

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Jason Gurwin / The Streamable:
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
The 8-Bit:
Christian Peña / NBC News:
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Karen Hao / MIT Technology Review:
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge: