Techmeme
April 13, 2021, 9:55 AM

Top News

Sami Fathi / MacRumors:
Siri prematurely reveals Apple's next event planned for Tuesday, April 20, in which it is expected to unveil new iPad Pro models and possibly AirTags trackers  —  Siri has apparently prematurely revealed that Apple plans to hold an event on Tuesday, April 20, where the company is expected …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft unveils Surface Laptop 4 with 13.5" and 15" displays, starting at $999 for AMD model and $1,299 for Intel, shipping April 15 in US, Canada, and Japan  —  The AMD version starts at $300 less than Intel's equivalent  —  Microsoft is refreshing its Surface lineup with the Surface Laptop 4 today …
Oversight Board:
Facebook Oversight Board will now accept appeals to remove content from Facebook and Instagram; previously, users were only able to appeal to restore content  —  From today, users will be able to appeal content to the Oversight Board which they want removed from Facebook and Instagram.
Ian Hamilton / UploadVR:
Facebook to host Oculus Gaming Showcase, a virtual event focused exclusively on VR games, on April 21, with streams on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch  —  Facebook will host an Oculus Gaming Showcase streaming to various sites on April 21.  —  The event will stream to Twitch, Facebook …
Jeff Dunn / Ars Technica:
Roku announces a trio of new devices: $40 Express 4K Plus streaming device, a $30 rechargeable Voice Remote Pro, and $180 Streambar Pro  —  Plus new Roku OS updates and a revised two-in-one streaming soundbar.  —  Roku on Tuesday announced its latest 4K media streamer, the Roku Express 4K+.
Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg:
Grab is going public on NASDAQ via SPAC, raising $4B+ at a ~$39.6B valuation; deal would make it the first Southeast Asian tech unicorn to go public via SPAC  —  - SoftBank-backed Grab strikes pact with Gerstner's Altimeter  — Southeast Asia ride-hailing giant set to trade on Nasdaq
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Google to shut down Play Movies and TV app for Roku, Samsung, LG, and Vizio on June 15, will push users to use YouTube instead  —  After announcing Google TV last year, its predecessor had an unspoken expiration date.  This week, Google has confirmed that it will kill off the Play Movies & TV app …
Ryan Smith / AnandTech:
Zak Doffman / Forbes:
Researchers have discovered a flaw where any user can deactivate another user's WhatsApp via multiple 2FA requests and emailing support to deactivate account  —  A nasty new surprise for WhatsApp's 2 billion users today, with the discovery of an alarming security risk.
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
OnePlus Watch review: long battery life, nice finish, and low price, but no voice assistant, no always-on display, few notification options, only one big size  —  The OnePlus Watch pairs with and is controlled by the OnePlus Health app for Android — there's no iPhone compatibility at all.
Brave Browser:
Brave is disabling Google's FLoC tracking method from all of its releases, saying it materially harms user privacy under the guise of being privacy-friendly  —  Peter Snyder, Senior Privacy Researcher at Brave  —  FLoC is a recent Google proposal that would have your browser share …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Through her version of Fearless, Taylor Swift is showing artists how to use the power of the internet to ascribe value to work they own and devalue the rest  —  In July 2014 Taylor Swift wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal entitled, For Taylor Swift, the Future of Music Is a Love Story:
Axios:
Senator Josh Hawley unveils a proposal aimed at Big Tech that would bolster antitrust laws and ban acquisitions by companies with a market cap of over $100B  —  Corporate giants would be barred from acquisitions and century-old antitrust laws would get sharper teeth under a new proposal by Sen. Josh Hawley …
Tyler Wilde / PC Gamer:

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Rita Kozlov / The Cloudflare Blog:

Earlier Picks

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols / ZDNet:
Stephen Nellis / Reuters:
Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Bloomberg:
Hartley Charlton / MacRumors: