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Techmeme
June 20, 2021, 9:30 PM

Top News

Matt Dougherty / KHOU-TV:
Some power companies in Texas are remotely adjusting the smart thermostats of users enrolled in their energy saving programs to reduce strain on power grids  —  Some said they didn't know their thermostats were being accessed from afar until it was almost 80 degrees inside their homes.
Wall Street Journal:
Analysts say the dominance of TSMC, which makes ~92% of the world's most sophisticated chips and 60% of chips used in cars, poses risks to the global economy  —  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s dominance poses risks to the global economy, amid geopolitical tensions and a major chip shortage
Betsy Ladyzhets / MIT Technology Review:
An analysis of the usage of COVID-19 contact tracing apps in 25 US states and DC finds that only 13 have enough usage to benefit from exposure notification  —  A year ago, engineers built apps to track potential virus exposure.  Our research shows the impact has been mixed—but there's still potential.
Ezra Fieser / Bloomberg:
A look at El Zonte, a surfing village in El Salvador dubbed Bitcoin Beach after an anonymous 2019 donation turned it into a controlled alt-currency experiment  —  An anonymous donor turned a tiny Pacific coast town without a bank into the world's biggest Bitcoin experiment.  Up next: the entire country.
Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
Olivia Solon / NBC News:
Drought-stricken communities in the US push back against data centers' water usage; a typical data center uses same water per day as a city of 30K-50K people  —  On May 17, the City Council of Mesa, Arizona, approved the $800 million development of an enormous data center …
Forbes:
Leonid Radvinsky, billionaire owner of OnlyFans, ran sites in the '90s promoting “hacked” porn site passwords, including links promising access to child porn  —  Associate editor at Forbes, covering cybercrime, privacy, security and surveillance.  —  I cover the work and wealth of Europe's richest.
Kristen Sinclair / The Verge:
A look at some Twitch streamers using the service to showcase minority languages like Galician, Welsh, Basque, and te reo Māori  —  Minority languages are often associated with aging rural communities, thought to have fallen out of use or confined to textbooks.
Chuq Von Rospach / 6FPS:
Apple, whose arrogance and sense of entitlement let it treat developers as a hassle for two decades, will find few allies as it fights looming regulation  —  If this issue seems late, believe it or not, it's not.  But given the vagaries of our calendar, this is the latest possible …

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