Techmeme
July 22, 2021, 8:45 PM

Top News

Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Two Democratic senators introduce a bill to strip away social media platforms' Section 230 liability shield if they amplify harmful public health misinformation  —  A new bill would make Facebook liable for misinformation  —  As coronavirus cases rise in unvaccinated populations …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
The Biden administration's promise to “review” Section 230 in response to anti-vax posts on Facebook will fail since being wrong online is protected speech  —  ‘Reviewing’ Section 230 isn't the answer to anti-vax posts  —  Last week, the White House declared war …
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Q&A with Zuckerberg about his vision for the metaverse and its potential to further splinter our sense of shared reality, Biden's comments about Facebook, more  —  As June came to an end, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told his employees about an ambitious new initiative.
Matthew Gault / VICE:
Old stories on news sites including WaPo are displaying embedded porn videos after the domain for the defunct video service Vidme was bought by a porn company  —  Stories on major news sites like ‘The Washington Post,’ and ‘New York Magazine’ currently have porn embedded in them.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Several major websites and services, including Amazon, Steam, and Airbnb, were down for about an hour on Thursday due to issues with Akamai's Edge DNS service  —  Update 12:48 p.m. ET: Akamai says it has implemented a fix for the issue.  “We have implemented a fix for this issue …
James Vincent / The Verge:
DeepMind says it used AI to create a “transformative” map of human proteins; some compare the potential impact of the work to that of the Human Genome Project  —  DeepMind plans to release hundreds of millions of protein structures for free  —  AI research lab DeepMind has created …
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Twitter beats with Q2 revenue of $1.19B, up 74% YoY, vs $1.07B est., ad revenue of $1.05B, up 87% YoY, and mDAUs of 206M, up 11% YoY; stock is up 8%+  —  - Twitter's revenue growth accelerated and surpassed analysts' expectations.  — The social-media company introduced its first subscription service in the quarter.
Nature:
Arm details PlasticARM, a 32-bit processor built on a flexible substrate, that it says can lead to embedding of low-cost, ultrathin chips into everyday objects  —  Nearly 50 years ago, Intel created the world's first commercially produced microprocessor—the 4004 (ref. 1), a modest 4-bit CPU …
Edwin Chan / Bloomberg:
Sources: China sees Didi's decision to go public despite pushback from regulators as a challenge to its authority and is considering unprecedented penalties  —  - Regulators weigh several penalties, from fine to delisting  — Ride-hailing startup raised $4.4 billion in U.S. listing
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Intel reports Q2 revenue of $18.5B, up 2% YoY, vs. $17.8B est., Data Center Group revenue of $6.5B, down 9% YoY, while PC unit sales were up 33% YoY  —  - Intel reported second-quarter earnings on Thursday in CEO Pat Gelsinger's second earnings report at the helm of the American chip giant.
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Snap Q2: revenue of $982M, up 116% YoY, DAUs up 23% YoY to 293M, and net loss shrunk 53% YoY to $152M; stock is up 13%+ after hours  —  - Snap on Thursday reported its second-quarter earnings, beating expectations across the board for earnings, revenue and user growth.
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
Kaseya says it obtained a universal decryptor for the REvil ransomware and is helping customers recover their data; it is unclear if Kaseya paid the ransom  —  Remote management software vendor Kaseya said today it obtained a universal decryptor for the REvil ransomware and is now in the process …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Twitter is testing a way to downvote replies on iOS to understand the types of replies users find relevant to a conversation; downvotes won't be public  —  Last year, Twitter's chief product officer Kayvon Beykpour confirmed that the social network was “exploring” the idea of adding a dislike button to the app.
Michael Corkery / New York Times:
Amazon ends use of arbitration for customer disputes, which critics said put consumers at a huge disadvantage; disputes can now be pursued in federal court  —  Now they will be pursued in federal court, a significant retreat from a strategy that often helps companies avoid liability.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Instagram is testing Limits, which lets users facing a flood of harassment temporarily limit comments and messages from specific groups of followers  —  Instagram head Adam Mosseri confirmed the company is testing a new feature called “Limits,” which would give users the ability to temporary lock …
Jessica Bursztynsky / CNBC:
Uber Freight to acquire Transplace, which makes transportation management software, from TPG, in a deal that values Transplace at $2.25B  —  - Uber Freight, the rideshare company's trucking division, said Thursday it's acquiring Transplace in a deal that values the transportation logistics company at $2.25 billion.
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google's unified smartwatch platform with Samsung to be called Wear OS 3 and come as an update to a few watches in H2 2022, not including any Tizen watches  —  Only a few current watches will get it, but not until late 2022  —  Google has finally given its new, unified smartwatch platform a name — and it's an obvious one: Wear OS 3.
Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch:
Index Ventures closes a $900M early-stage fund, a $2B growth-stage fund, and a $200M seed-stage fund, giving Index $3B in new capital, its largest tranche yet  —  Index Ventures has closed a trio of new funds: a $900 million early-stage fund, a $2 billion growth-stage fund and a previously announced $200 million seed-stage fund.
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Visa buys Currencycloud, which sells software for banks and fintech companies to process cross-border payments, in a deal valuing the UK startup at £700M  —  - Visa is buying Currencycloud in a deal valuing the British payments start-up at £700 million.

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
The crossroads of AI and SaaS  —  Enabling businesses of all sizes to build products in-house and disqualifying SaaS tools that are not AI-powered.  In a span of just two years, AI has made a name for itself as the key driver for innovation.
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 12/20 - Gemini Flash Thinking
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:45 PM ET, July 22, 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

Washington Post:

Earlier Picks

Shoshana Wodinsky / Gizmodo:
CNN:
Makena Kelly / The Verge: