Techmeme
August 26, 2021, 10:25 PM

Top News

Apple:
Apple agrees to settle class-action lawsuit, will let developers directly contact customers, inform them about alternative purchase options outside iOS, more  —  CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA Apple today announced a number of changes coming to the App Store that, pending court approval, will resolve a class-action suit from US developers.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: TSMC plans to increase prices by ~10% for advanced chips and ~20% for less advanced chips, starting later this year or early next  —  TSMC to increase prices of most advanced chips by roughly 10%; less advanced chips will cost about 20% more  —  The world's largest contract chip maker …
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
YouTube is implementing picture-in-picture functionality on its iOS app, starting with a testing window for Premium subscribers through October 31  —  YouTube is making good on its promise to  —  bring picture-in-picture viewing to iOS users.  TechCrunch
Wall Street Journal:
Q&A with John Binns, a 21-year-old American living in Turkey, who claims responsibility for the recent T-Mobile hack and says its security is “awful”  —  A 21-year-old American said he used an unprotected router to access millions of customer records in the mobile carrier's latest breach
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple launches News Partner Program, which lowers commissions on in-app purchases to 15% for news publishers who participate in Apple News  —  Apple today is launching a new program that will allow subscription news organizations that participate in the Apple News app and meet certain requirements …
Joan E. Solsman / CNET:
Netflix is testing games in its Android app in Poland, starting with two existing Stranger Things games  —  Playing on Netflix's mobile app is new, but the games themselves — two pixelated Stranger Things games — have already been available off Netflix for years.
Sujeong Lim / Counterpoint Research:
Apple Watch active user base crossed 100M globally in Q2, as the smartwatch market grew 27% YoY and the sub-$100 segment grew 547% YoY  —  - The market grew a healthy 27% YoY, thanks to strong demand for sub-$100 smartwatches.  — Samsung and Garmin posted remarkable YoY growth even as Apple maintained its lead.
Matthew Gault / VICE:
Reddit CEO responds after calls from users to purge the site of COVID-19 disinformation, saying “dissent is a part of Reddit and the foundation of democracy”  —  The CEO of Reddit has responded to calls from users to purge the site of disinformation, saying “dissent is a part of Reddit and the foundation of democracy.”
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Snap updates Snapchat's Scan feature, turning it into a visual search engine that identifies many things in the real world, like clothes or dog breeds  —  Snapchat's camera has to date mostly been associated with sending disappearing messages and goofy AR effects, like a virtual dancing hot dog.
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Internal corporate directory shows Microsoft has hired 15-year AWS veteran Charlie Bell as a corporate VP  —  - Charlie Bell is listed as a corporate vice president under Kathleen Hogan, Microsoft's human-resources chief  — Bell left Amazon recently after 15 years in a top leadership position at Amazon Web Services.
Ryan Weeks / The Block:
DJ 3LAU launches Royal, which lets users trade shares of song royalty rights as crypto tokens, with $16M in seed funding led by Founders Fund and Paradigm  —  Royal, a non-fungible token (NFT) investment platform focused on music, has announced a $16 million seed-stage fundraise.
Joan E. Solsman / CNET:
YouTube says it has removed over 1M videos related to COVID misinformation since Feb. 2020 and removes 10M videos per quarter, most of which have <10 views  —  But the 1 million coronavirus-related takedowns since the start of the pandemic are difficult to put in context, because of YouTube's gigantic scale.
Alex Hern / The Guardian:
UK government says it will move away from EU's GDPR after Brexit, including possibly ending cookie consent popups, and names John Edwards as preferred ICO head  —  Culture secretary says move could lead to an end to irritating cookie popups and consent requests online
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
After White House meeting, Google will spend $10B over five years and train 100K IT and data workers, Apple pledges supply chain security improvements, and more  —  - The White House hosted a cybersecurity summit with CEOs in sectors ranging from tech to insurance.
Insider:
In an abrupt reversal, OnlyFans suspends its October 1 policy change banning porn after securing “assurances” and aims to provide “a home for all creators”  —  - OnlyFans is reversing its recent decision to ban porn.  — It had planned to prohibit sexually explicit …
Zeyi Yang / Protocol:
China calls the “996” work culture, a weekly schedule of six 12-hour work days popular among Chinese tech firms, a “serious violation” of labor law  —  The “996” work culture — a 12-hour, six-day work schedule that had been popular among Chinese tech companies until recently …
Reuters:
Sources: Berkshire Hathaway-backed Brazilian digital bank Nubank is seeking a valuation greater than $55.4B for its planned US IPO  —  Brazil's Nubank is seeking a valuation in its planned U.S. initial public offering that would push the eight-year-old fintech past the $55.4 billion value …
More: FinLedger
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
A history of Google's messaging apps and how a lack of any kind of top-down messaging leadership has led to a decade and a half of failed messaging platforms  —  Sixteen years after the launch of Google Talk, Google messaging is still a mess.  —  Google Talk, Google's first-ever instant messaging platform …

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