Episodes

Here was our Twitter Space from this week. We ended up talking all about Coinbase, helped by some great analysis from Romeen Sheth, who I think you’ll recall I quoted from when we talked about this on Wednesday. You can follow Romeen on twitter @RomeenSheth, link in the show notes. And also, he has a great podcast called Square One, where he interviews founders and investors, folks like Anthony Pompliano, Li Jin, David Sacks, even Andrew Yang. Give it a listen, search Square One on your podcast app of choice.Sponsors:Today In Digital Marketing podcastGivingMultiplier.org/techmeme

The counting is finally happening, and not to be all Nate Silver, but it’s looking fairly certain that Amazon won its big union battle. Apple and Epic Games are making their first arguments in that big lawsuit. A big new scraping hack, this time for half a billion LinkedIn users. Neurolink shows a monkey playing Pong with its brain. And of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.Sponsors:Blockchain.comFundRise.com/techmeme Links:Partial tally in Amazon union drive favors ‘No’ votes. (NYTimes)Epic v. Apple discovery details ‘Project Liberty’ scheme to skirt App Store with Fortnite (9to5Mac)Apple Admits Purposely Keeping iMessage Off Android Helps Lock Users In (DroidLife)Hackers scraped data from 500 million LinkedIn users — about two-thirds of the platform's userbase — and have posted it for sale online (Insider)Neuralink's brain-computer interface demo shows a monkey playing Pong (Engadget)Weekend Longreads Suggestions:Silicon Valley Is Flooding Into a Reluctant Austin (Blo…

If the chip shortage is now biting even Apple, things are getting real, y’all. Twitter apparently took a run at buying Clubhouse. Facebook has a new Clubhouse like product called Hotline. Lenovo’s new phone convinces me gaming phones are truly a thing. And are there signs we’re finally gonna see those Apple AirTags… or do the tea leaves reveal the exact opposite?Sponsors:Calderalab.com code TECHMEME at checkoutBlockchain.comLinks:MacBook and iPad production delayed as supply crunch hits App...

Coinbase has revealed the number behind their business, and they are brain exploding emoji. A big Patreon raise shows the moneybags are serious about this creator economy thing. Nobody is crying at Plaid over that failed Visa merger. There’s a new king of the gaming laptop hill. And I try my best to unravel the twisted tale of the latest Facebook data scandal.Sponsors:Kiwico.com, Promocode ride for 30 percent offBlockchain.comLinks:Coinbase Posts Blowout Q1 Profit of $730-$800 Million, Days Before Public Listing (Decrypt)Patreon’s Valuation Triples to $4 Billion as Platform Draws Creators, Fans (WSJ)Clubhouse Discusses Funding at About $4 Billion Value (Bloomberg)Plaid raises $425M Series D from Altimeter as it charts a post-Visa future (TechCrunch)Global Venture Funding Hits All-Time Record High $125B In Q1 2021 (Crunchbase News)Alienware’s M15 R5 is its first AMD-based gaming laptop in over a decade (The Verge)What Really Caused Facebook's 500M-User Data Leak? (Wired)

Clubhouse isn’t messing around when it comes to flipping the monetization switch. TikTok translation might make that platform even more global. Yahoo Answers circles the drain. Are NFT prices already dropping? And with the new digital Yuan, would the Chinese government be able to literally turn off the money in your wallet?Sponsors:Today In Digital Marketing PodcastKraken.com/techmemeLinks:Clubhouse’s new direct payments let you toss a coin to creators, and they get 100 percent (The Verge)TikTok adds automatic captions to videos in accessibility push (The Verge)Yahoo Answers will be shut down forever on May 4th (The Verge)The NFT bubble might be bursting already (CNN Business)China Creates Its Own Digital Currency, a First for Major Economy (WSJ)E3 2021 Will Take Place as a Free Virtual Conference, In-Person L.A. Event Targeted for Next Year (Variety)Streaming Services Have Finally Run Out of New Shows. Kind of. (Bloomberg)

The Supreme Court has ruled on APIs in a way that should make most developers happy. Though, the punted on the President blocking people on Twitter. LG is exiting the smartphone business. And we already knew half a billion people’s Facebook data was out in the wild, but now that we’ve SEEN it in the wild, I’ll tell you why you should take notice.Sponsors:Blockchain.comNewYorker.com/techmeme promocode techmemeLinks:Supreme Court rules in Google’s favor in copyright dispute with Oracle over Android software (CNBC)Supreme Court vacates lower court decision on Trump blocking Twitter followers (Axios)LG Electronics to end loss-making smartphone business (NikkeiAsia)Amazon Illegally Fired Activist Workers, Labor Board Finds (NYTimes)533 million Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online (Insider)Is Apple's Privacy Push Facebook's Existential Threat‪?‬ (Kara Swisher's Sway Podcast)Sideloading Apps Would 'Break' the Security and Privacy of iPhone, Says Tim Co…

We didn’t go as long as last time because after about 45 minutes, somehow no one could hear me, even though I was the space commissar, or whatever they term it. Anyway, as you’ll hear, we ended up talking about that big AR story with Microsoft and the HoloLens and the Pentagon. Robert Scoble, who has been on this beat for years showed up serendipitously, to give us some schooling in the space. Enjoy…

Coinbase is going public and sharing its numbers ahead of time, which is rare and probably a sign of confidence. The App Store has started rejecting apps ahead of that big new privacy change. Has Tencent’s gaming studio become the biggest in the world? Another Clubhouse clone, this time from Discord. And of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.Sponsors:MasterWorks.io promocode rideGivingMultiplier.org/techmemeLinks:Coinbase To Go Public on April 14, Announce Q1 Earnings Beforehand (Decrypt)Apple Rejecting Apps With Fingerprinting Enabled As iOS 14 Privacy Enforcement Starts (Forbes)Apple knew it was selling defective MacBook displays, judge concludes (The Verge)Discord’s new Clubhouse-like feature, Stage Channels, is available now (The Verge)Exclusive: Tencent's Timi gaming studio generated $10 billion in 2020, sources say (Reuters)Weekend Longreads Suggestions:People's Expensive NFTs Keep Vanishing. This Is Why (Motherboard)5 Years After the Oculus Rift, Where Do VR a…

Microsoft’s big HoloLens deal with the Pentagon is maybe the big bang for the augmented reality industry. Amazon says their folks can come back to work soon, and in fact, they’d prefer if you did. Bearish signs for the work remotely movement? Why these are boom times for chip makers. And why Siri’s new voices think of gender as a spectrum.Sponsors:Today In Digital Marketing PodcastAirMedCareNetwork.com/tech offer code TECHLinks:Microsoft wins U.S. Army contract for augmented reality headsets, worth up to $21.9 billion over 10 years (CNBC)Amazon says it expects some employees to return to the office this summer, most will return in fall (CNBC)TSMC to Spend $100 Billion Over Three Years to Grow Capacity (Bloomberg)Apple adds two brand new Siri voices and will no longer default to a female or male voice in iOS (TechCrunch)Comcast Weighs Pulling Universal’s Movies From HBO Max, Netflix (Bloomberg)Thrasio raises $100M for its Amazon roll-up play, appoints retail CFO for its next steps…

Facebook has announced News Feed changes to bring chronology back. LinkedIn is working on a Clubhouse rival and I think that makes total sense. Apple actually leads an interesting investment round. Deliveroo has a disastrous first day on the public markets. And how about Roblox, but inside the Unreal Engine?Sponsors:PingIdentity.comTinyCapital.comLinks:Facebook Adds New 'Most Recent' Timeline to Switch to Chronological Posts (MacRumors)LinkedIn confirms it’s working on a Clubhouse rival, too (TechCrunch)Apple invests $50M into music distributor UnitedMasters alongside A16z and Alphabet (TechCrunch)Android sends 20x more data to Google than iOS sends to Apple, study says (ArsTechnica)Deliveroo drags on the LSE; closes down 44% on debut (TechCrunch)Maker of NBA Top Shot Scores $305 Million in New Funding (WSJ)ConsenSys Lines Up Damien Hirst to Launch New NFT Art Protocol (Decrypt)Manticore Games raises $100M for user-generated games in the ‘multiverse’ (GamesBeat)RideHome+ Feed:…

It’s actually a nutso butso news day. Spotify is launching a Clubhouse competitor. Amazon is spinning up a new line of custom silicon. Big updates to Google Maps. We know the dates for WWDC. Amazon seems to be doing some Twitter sock puppetry. A bunch of new phones from Xiaomi. Substack is raising another big round. And that’s not all. There’s so much that happened today in the world of tech, that I can’t even promo it all, so let’s just get to it.Sponsors:TinyCapital.comMetalab.comLinks:Spotify is launching its own Clubhouse competitor (The Verge)Spotify acquires Betty Labs, creator of live audio app Locker Room (Axios)Amazon Steps Up Silicon Ambitions With New Networking Chip (The Information)Google is making some big upgrades to directions in Google Maps (The Verge)Apple officially announces virtual WWDC 2021 for June, iOS 15 and more expected (9to5Mac)Amazon is sending employees into the trenches on Twitter as it battles its first union vote and reports about workers peeing i…

New York, Japan, China and the EU are all gonna try out digital vaccine passports. Visa is gonna try out a stablecoin to settle transactions. The official PHP Git repository was hacked. Boston Dynamics has a new robot that isn’t as scary… unless you’re a warehouse worker. And what is Amazon’s aggressive PR recently all about?Sponsors:Fundrise.com/techmemeGrammarly.com/techmemeLinks:New York launches nation's first 'vaccine passports.' Others are working on similar ideas, but many details must be worked out. (USAToday)Exclusive: Visa moves to allow payment settlements using cryptocurrency (Reuters)PHP's Git server hacked to add backdoors to PHP source code (BleepingComputer)Boston Dynamics unveils Stretch: a new robot designed to move boxes in warehouses (The Verge)OpenAI’s text-generating system GPT-3 is now spewing out 4.5 billion words a day (The Verge)Amazon keeps trying to troll US Congress members in perplexing new PR strategy (The Verge)Amazon Union Vote Ends as Both Sides …

This is the clubhouse room from Monday, March 22nd. Topics discussed here include the situation with the Dispo app. Zoom’s new SDK. The fate of the HomePod and that secret new gizmo inside the HomePod Mini, and a deep dive into two of the longreads from LAST week: Moore's Law for Everything post and Tim O’Reilly’s piece The End of Silicon Valley as We Know It?

So, as I said, this is one of the clubhouse rooms we did this week. In fact, it’s the one from last night. Chris convinced me to split the two rooms into two episodes, so I’m releasing this one, from Friday first, and tomorrow I’ll post the one we did Monday night. Topics for this episode: Slack getting into social audio, Microsoft buying Discord, what the heck is BitClout! The great Brady Dale @BradyDale from Coindesk helped us out with that. And more explication of my rant concerning the whole Medium situation.

The House tech hearings were a nothing burger, but I’ll try to explain what that means for us. Apple is considering a more rugged Apple Watch. Slack is doing a Clubhouse clone and… stories. WeWork is back, with a SPAC. And of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.Sponsors:EditorX.comThoughtWorks Technology PodcastLinks:Yes or no: Are these tech hearings doing anything? (The Verge)Apple Considers Launching Rugged Watch for Extreme Sports (Bloomberg)Slack is getting new audio features (Protocol)WeWork Agrees to SPAC Deal That Would Take Startup Public (WSJ)Weekend Longreads Suggestions:Intel Unleashed, Gelsinger on Intel, IDM 2.0 (Stratechery)The long, complicated, and extremely frustrating history of Medium, 2012–present (NeimanLab)Microsoft CEO Hunts Anew for Creator Hub After TikTok Bid Fails (Bloomberg)The fuss about BitClout (Axios)Crypto social network BitClout arrives with a bevy of high-profile investors — and skeptics (TechCrunch)Analysis: Money no object as governm…

Remember that Onion headline, F- Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades? Well, Samsung says welcome to the DDR5 era. There’s more tech testimony on Capitol Hill today. That Arizona bill that would have regulated the App Store mysteriously disappears. Deliveroo is facing a full on revolt. And my wife covers the Chrissy Teigen twitter news.Sponsors:Calderalab.com use code TECHMEME (all caps one word) at checkoutMasterworks.io, promocode rideLinks:Samsung Announces 512GB DDR5 Memory That Is Twice As Fast As DDR4 (HotHardware)Zuckerberg suggests how to tweak tech's liability shield (Axios)Genshin Impact Races Past $1 Billion on Mobile in Less Than Six Months (SensorTower)Arizona Senate skips vote on controversial bill that would regulate Apple and Google app stores (The Verge)Independent cloud provider DigitalOcean drops in Wall Street debut (CNBC)Deliveroo Hit by Investor, Rider Revolt Ahead of London IPO (Bloomberg)Twitter’s ‘unofficial mayor’ Chrissy Teigen quits platform after years…

You can now use Bitcoin to buy a Tesla. You can now DM anyone on Slack. Intel is now doing what Ben Thompson has been telling them to do for years. What Medium is doing to journalists is dumb. What Verizon is doing with Yahoo+ is dumb. And is the Chief Impact Officer title a real role, or is it… dumb?Sponsors:The Hello, User Podcast From Ping IdentityBuyRaycon.com/tech for 15% offLinks:Elon Musk says people can now buy a Tesla with bitcoin (CNBC)WhatsApp for work: Slack is turning into a full-on messaging app (Protocol)Trading App Robinhood Says It Filed Confidentially for IPO (Bloomberg)Intel invests $20 billion into new factories, will produce chips for other companies (The Verge)Exclusive: Qualcomm is planning an Android-powered Nintendo Switch knockoff (Android Police)Medium Tells Journalists to Feel Free to Quit After Busting Union Drive (Motherboard)Verizon to center media arm around new subscription platform Yahoo+ (Axios)Amazon hires former executive Adam Selipsky to run …

Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy Discord but Discord might just take itself public instead. A ton of video game news including an Xbox rebranding, a new Niantic partnership with Nintendo, and new rumors of that upgraded Nintendo switch. A new consortium wants to take the pain out of browser compatibility and Apple faces a class action lawsuit over the butterfly keyboards.Links:Microsoft in Talks to Buy Discord for More Than $10 Billion (Bloomberg)Microsoft rebrands Xbox Live to Xbox network (The Verge)Pikmin is the next AR game from the makers of Pokémon Go (The Verge)Nintendo to Use New Nvidia Graphics Chip in 2021 Switch Upgrade (Bloomberg)Microsoft, Google, and others join forces to improve browser compatibility (Neowin)Facebook will bring back F8 on June 2 as a pared-back, single-day, virtual-only conference for developers (TechCrunch)Angry MacBook owners get class action status for butterfly keyboard suit (The Verge)Jack Dorsey’s first tweet sold as an NFT for an oddly s…

Red hot app Dispo is losing some big name investors and the founder is leaving the startup’s board. As anticipated, Zoom goes platform. Microsoft is beginning a soft HQ reopening. The secret sensor found in the HomePod mini. And the smart startup that has cloned Amazon’s biggest competitive moats, to make them available to everybody.Sponsors:Kiwico.com, promocode "ride" for 30 percent off!BuyRaycon.com/tech for 15% offLinks:David Dobrik, Losing Sponsors and Fans, Steps Down From App He Co-founded (NYTimes)Spark Capital decides to “sever all ties” with David Dobrik’s Dispo app weeks after leading deal (TechCrunch)Zoom introduces new SDK to help developers tap into video services (TechCrunch)Microsoft to start reopening headquarters on March 29th, with hybrid workplace focus (The Verge)Apple’s HomePod Mini Has a Secret Sensor Waiting to Be Switched On (BLoomberg)Inside the Democrats' strategy to bombard Big Tech (Axios)On-demand logistics and fulfillment startup Flowspace raises $3…

Last weekend a listener to this show, Ti Zhang, (@zero_chill_tea) tagged me on twitter around a conversation they were having about NFTs and the degree to which, lots of folks in the art world are not so thrilled with the advent of NFTs. They said, sure, we see all the headlines around famous artists and celebrities and all the money being made. But was I aware that artists were seeing their work stolen and sold as NFTs? That artists were taking their work down from the internet to make sure it wasn’t scraped and used on a blockchain somewhere? I was not. They started sending articles and links, some of which I posted in the show notes and I was like, hey, instead of just educating me about the NFT thing from the artist perspective, come on the show real quick and educate us all. So, the first half of the show is that. Thank you Ti, for being such a great resource.Then, after a break, the second half of the show will be just some of the Interesting Raises from the Interesting Raises…

It’s app platform product news day! Instagram is working on a version of the service suitable for kids. Twitter wants you to watch YouTube in-stream. Telegram is basically adding all the Clubhouse features I’ve been dreaming of. Was an anti-Apple rebel alliance born last night in a Clubhouse room? Why China is banning Tesla in some cases. And of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.Sponsors:EditorX.comMolekule.com, code "techmeme" at checkout to save as much as $120!Links:Facebook Is Building An Instagram For Kids Under The Age Of 13 (BuzzFeed News)Twitter begins testing a way to watch YouTube videos from the home timeline on iOS (TechCrunch)Telegram takes on Clubhouse with Voice Chat 2.0 (XDA Developers)Zuckerberg: Facebook may actually be in a ‘stronger position’ after Apple’s iOS 14 privacy changes (CNBC)China to Restrict Tesla Use by Military and State Employees (WSJ)Weekend Longreads Suggestions:The End of Silicon Valley as We Know It? (O'Reilly)Moore's Law for Every…

It’s an Apple rumor Thursday from both the boys, Gurman and Kuo. Sony is taking what it’s learned from the DualSense controllers and bringing that to VR. YouTube rolls out its TikTok rival. Spotify wants you to know it gets artists paid. And I do my best to explain the whole creator economy controversy that has sprung up over at Substack.Sponsors:Tovala.com/rideLinks:Apple Nears Launch of New iPads After Stay-At-Home Sales Boost (Bloomberg)PS5's VR 2.0: First Look At New Controllers (GameSpot)YouTube Shorts arrives in the US to take on TikTok, but the beta is still half-baked (The Verge)Spotify says over 13,000 artists’ catalogs earned at least $50K in royalties last year (The Verge)Here's why Substack's scam worked so well (The Hypothesis)Substack is for independent writers (Substack Blog)Crypto marketplace OpenSea raises $23 million to be the ‘Amazon of NFTs’ (Fortune)Intel puts Apple’s ‘I’m a Mac’ guy into new ads praising PCs (The Verge)

Samsung’s second Unpacked event of the year brings new midrange phones. But are they really discontinuing the Galaxy Note, and are chip shortages the real reason why? Are reductions in app store fees really what they’re cracked up to be? Has Uber had a change of heart or just an acknowledgement of the inevitable? And the bear case for Clubhouse that everyone is talking about.Sponsors:NewYorker.com/techmeme promocode techmemeTovala.com/rideLinks:Samsung’s midrange phones now feature fast refresh rate screens, stabilized cameras (The Verge)Samsung Warns of Severe Chip Crunch While Delaying Key Phone (Bloomberg)Google cuts app store fees for developers on first million in annual sales (CNBC)Google and Apple are giving up less than 5% of their revenue from apps with payout changes, analytics firm estimates (CNBC)Uber grants UK drivers worker status after losing major labor battle (CNBC)Pinduoduo Founder Colin Huang Steps Down From Company (WSJ)Clubhouse Tweet Thread (ShaanVP)Tampa Tw…

Google’s 2nd gen Nest Hub gets sleep tracking thanks to the Soli chip. Intel’s 11th Gen desktop chips launch. Xi brings the hammer down on Chinese tech. And the craziest cellphone hack I’ve ever heard isn’t a hack at all, since it’s in a nutso-buttso unregulated grey area. Sponsors:Fundrise.com/techmemeTovala.com/rideLinks:Google announces 2nd-gen Nest Hub with Soli-powered ‘Sleep Sensing’ for $99 (9to5Google)Intel’s 11th Gen desktop chips are here with faster speeds but fewer cores (The Verge)Dropbox will have a free password manager in April — if you’ve got 50 or fewer passwords (The Verge)Xi Warns Against Tech Excess in Sign Crackdown Will Widen (Bloomberg)Alibaba browser pulled from Chinese app stores (FT)Exclusive: Investors value China's Ant Group at over $200 billion after IPO halt - sources (Reuters)A Hacker Got All My Texts for $16 (Motherboard)