Techmeme
September 14, 2021, 9:30 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Internal docs: Facebook's own research shows Instagram is harmful to a sizeable percentage of users, especially teen girls, but has taken few remedial steps  —  Its own in-depth research shows a significant teen mental-health issue that Facebook plays down in public
Jeff Horwitz / Wall Street Journal:
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Citizen Lab says it found evidence of ForcedEntry on an activist's iPhone and the exploit worked on iPads, Macs, and Watches as well, prior to recent updates  —  Citizen Lab says the ForcedEntry flaw affects all iPhones, iPads, Macs and Watches  —  Apple has released security updates …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Sohee Kim / Bloomberg:
South Korea fines Google $177M for abusing market dominance, saying it prevented companies like Samsung from developing or using modified versions of Android  —  - Company said to have impeded development of competing software  — Regulator orders change to Google contracts with manufacturers
Samantha Subin / CNBC:
Intuit says it has agreed to acquire Mailchimp for $12B in cash and stock  —  - Intuit will buy email marketing company Mailchimp for $12 billion, the companies announced Monday.  — Intuit said it will use the acquisition to accelerate growth among small business clients.
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Biden to nominate Georgetown law professor Alvaro Bedoya, who focuses on privacy issues, to be a commissioner at the FTC  —  Alvaro Bedoya has spearheaded pivotal research into how the government's use of facial recognition software hurts America's most marginalized
Josh Dzieza / The Verge:
A look at the harsh reality of working for on-demand delivery apps in NYC, including fluctuating pay and relentless time pressure, and labor organizing efforts  —  Exploited by apps.  Attacked by thieves.  Unprotected by police.  The city's 65,000 bikers have only themselves to count on.
Sun Yu / Financial Times:
Chinese police are using a state-backed anti-fraud app, installed on 200M+ devices, to identify and question people who have viewed overseas financial news  —  Police identify and question people on back of software meant to prevent online scams  —  Chinese police are using …
Karen Hao / MIT Technology Review:
Researcher discovers an AI-powered service that makes it incredibly easy for users to generate nonconsensual deepfake porn by uploading a picture of a face  —  Deepfake researchers have long feared the day this would arrive.  —  The website is eye-catching for its simplicity.
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
A breakdown of Apple vs. Epic decision, which was a near total victory for Apple, and the limitations of the injunction on App Store's anti-steering provision  —  The vast majority of Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers decision in Epic v. Apple is both straight-forward and predictable …
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Neosec, which offers tools to secure APIs, emerges from stealth with $20.7M Series A from True Ventures and others  —  The Transform Technology Summits start October 13th with Low-Code/No Code: Enabling Enterprise Agility.  Register now!  —  Neosec, a cybersecurity platform designed to secure APIs …
Kim Lyons / The Verge:
Litecoin spiked ~20% after several news outlets, including Reuters and CNBC, reported that Walmart would begin accepting it based on a fake press release  —  GlobeNewswire, the site where the hoax release was posted, said it came from a fraudulent user account.
Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:
Amazon announces an OS update for Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite, and Kindle Oasis with a new UI, the first refresh since around 2016, rolling out now  —  Refined look and feel coming to most Kindles released since 2015.  —  Amazon's Kindle e-readers get new software updates regularly …
Source: AmazonMore: The Verge, TechCrunch, and Engadget
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
London-based PassFort, which helps companies with KYC and AML requirements, raises $16.2M Series A led by Level Equity  —  London-based PassFort, a SaaS provider that helps business meet compliance requirements such as KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) reporting …
More: Finextra and FinSMEs

Sponsor Posts

TELUS Digital:
What you need to know about fine-tuning LLMs  —  Success with generative AI hinges on honing a pretrained LLM to be a specialist at your intended domain or application.  Learn how to fine-tune for four key characteristics.
Intel:
Intel Delivers powerful CPUs for AI and Networking  —  With the onset of AI, businesses demand powerful and efficient CPUs.  Explore new Intel Xeon 6 processors, for the broadest set of workloads with leadership performance and lower TCO.
Zoho:
Planned India Data Center Maintenance on 5th and 6th April 2025 from 09.00 AM to 09:30 AM IST for Zoho Payments  —  Dear customers,Our bi-annual infrastructure maintenance for our India Data Center is scheduled for April 5 & 6 …
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:
(Essay) Silicon Valley's "Sovereign Tech Stack" Problem
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Hard Fork:
The Tech Behind Signalgate + Dwarkesh Patel's "Scaling Era" + Is A.I. Making Our Listeners Dumb?
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Aaron Levie (CEO, Box) on Enterprise AI Trends No One is Talking About Yet
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Great Chat:
Does anyone care about bad behavior anymore?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Capitalism vs. the bird flu
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Lenny's Podcast:
How to win in the AI era: Ship a feature every week, embrace technical debt, ruthlessly cut scope, and create magic your competitors can't copy | Gaurav Misra (CEO and co-founder of Captions)
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 9:30 AM ET, September 14, 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

Earlier Picks

Dina Temple-Raston / The Record:
Shane Goldmacher / New York Times:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: