Techmeme
May 10, 2022, 11:25 PM

Top News

Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Apple discontinues the iPod touch, leaving the device on sale “while supplies last” and ending the product line after debuting the original iPod in October 2001  —  Last October marked 20 years of the iPod.  It's a remarkable run in the cutthroat, always-iterating world of consumer electronics.
Paul Kiernan / Wall Street Journal:
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen: passing legislation in 2022 to create a stablecoin regulatory framework “would be highly appropriate”, after UST's stumble  —  Treasury secretary expresses hope that Congress will pass legislation this year to create regulatory framework for stablecoins
Stacy-Marie Ishmael / Bloomberg:
A look at Do Kwon's algorithmic stablecoin UST, designed to trade at $1 but which fell as low as $0.60; CoinMarketCap says there is 17.8B UST in circulation  —  Algorithmic stablecoins, like their more “traditional” counterparts, are supposed to provide calm in the chaos of crypto.
Michael D McDonald / Bloomberg:
Dave Lee / @daveleeft:
[Thread] In an interview, Musk says Twitter has a “left bias”, he would “literally put” its “algorithm on GitHub”, and he thinks he would reverse Trump's ban  —  Twitter currently the “least bad” public square, @elonmusk says at #FTCar. “In order to be better at that it needs to get rid of the bots, the scams.” Live here: https://www.youtube.com/...
New York Times:
Sources: Netflix executives told employees that the company plans to launch its lower-priced ad-supported tier and crack down on password sharing in Q4 2022  —  Executives said they were aiming to introduce an ad-supported, lower-priced subscription tier in the last three months of the year, quicker than originally indicated.
James Pearson / Reuters:
The UK and the EU say Russia launched a cyberattack that disrupted Viasat's satellite internet network in February; the US says multiple networks were attacked  —  Russia was behind a massive cyberattack against a satellite internet network which took thousands of modems offline at the onset …
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
Coinbase Q1: $1.2B net revenue, down from $1.6B YoY, vs $1.5B est., 9.2M MTUs, up from 6.1M YoY, $309B trading volume, down from $335B YoY; stock down ~16%  —  - Coinbase reported first-quarter earnings after the bell on Tuesday.  — The earnings come amid a major sell-off across the crypto market.
New York Times:
Interviews with 50+ people detail the rapid rise of Bolt, which overstated its tech and numbers, as its valuation soared from $250M in 2018 to $11B in 2021  —  The start-up has had a meteoric rise, thanks to its charismatic co-founder, Ryan Breslow.  But he sometimes stretched the truth to get there.
Corin Faife / The Verge:
Rest of World:
A look at Meta's and Google's subsea cable investments in Africa, the least connected continent, as the companies seek the terrestrial links to a billion users  —  One sunny Thursday morning in September 2021, three men gathered at the Multimedia University of Kenya, in Nairobi, for a small ceremony.
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Online wholesale marketplace Faire raises a $416M extension, more than doubling the size of its Series G round and boosting its post-money valuation to $12.59B  —  Faire, which has built a marketplace connecting retailers to indie brands globally, has raised a $416 million extension …
Laurence Fletcher / Financial Times:
Analysis: Tiger Global has lost about $17B during 2022's tech stock sell-off, erasing in four months around two-thirds of its gains made since its 2001 launch  —  Hedge fund suffers ‘breathtaking’ drop as speculative stocks sink from pandemic peaks  —  Tiger Global has been hit by losses …
Rashi Shrivastava / Forbes:
Mashgin, which makes computer vision-based touchless self-checkout kiosks, raises a $62.5M Series B led by NEA at a $1.5B post-money valuation  —  Mashgin's computer vision AI self checkout can scan multiple packaged products as well as food items in a matter of seconds.
Shubham Sharma / VentureBeat:
Certn, which offers AI-driven tools to conduct background checks and risk monitoring for employees, contractors, and tenants, raises a $50M Series B  —  Canada-based Certn, a company that provides AI-powered background screening solutions to enterprises, today announced it has raised $50 million …
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Brightseed, which develops an AI-based system called Forager to identify and categorize plant compounds for human health, raises a $68M Series B led by Temasek  —  Who knows what secrets await in the hearts of plants?  Brightseed has found a couple of them, anyway, using an AI-based analysis method …
Eli Tan / CoinDesk:
Co:Create, which helps NFT collections launch their own tokens, raises a $25M seed led by a16z, in the wake of ApeCoin's successful token-tied NFT approach  —  Non-fungible token (NFT) startup Co:Create has raised a $25 million seed round to help NFT collections launch their own tokens …
Politico:
Leaked proposal: the EC plans to release a draft law this week that would require tech companies like Meta, Apple, and Google to detect, remove, and report CSAM  —  Brussels is bracing for one of its biggest and most emotional tech fights yet as companies face stringent new rules to clamp down on sexual abuse material.

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