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(Bonus) Monday 03.22 Clubhouse Room Mar 28, 2021

Show notes

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?

(Bonus) Friday 03.26 Clubhouse Room Mar 27, 2021

Show notes

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.

Fri. 03/26 – The House Tech Hearings Were… Whatever… Mar 26, 2021

Show notes

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.

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Links:

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 governments race to build chip arsenals (Reuters)
Buffer overruns, license violations, and bad code: FreeBSD 13’s close call (ArsTechnica)
VC Firms Have Long Backed AI. Now, They Are Using It. (WSJ)
The Hard Truth About Bitcoin's Energy Consumption (Decrypt)
Mac OS X Turns 20: A Look Back at the Operating System That Helped Save Apple (PCMag)

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Thu. 03/25 – DDR5 Arrives (F*** Everything, We're Doing Five Blades) Mar 25, 2021

Show notes

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 checkout
Masterworks.io, promocode ride

Links:

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 of harassment (The Verge)

Wed. 03/24 – Buying Teslas With Bitcoin Is More Bullish For Whom? Mar 24, 2021

Show notes

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 Identity
BuyRaycon.com/tech for 15% off

Links:

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 AWS (CNBC)
Prince Harry Is Taking on a New Job Title: Chief Impact Officer at BetterUp (WSJ)

Tue. 03/23 – Microsoft To Buy Discord? Mar 23, 2021

Show notes

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 specific $2,915,835.47 (The Verge)

Mon. 03/22 – Unusual Trouble At Red-Hot Startup Dispo Mar 22, 2021

Show notes

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% off

Links:

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 $31M (VentureBeat)

(Bonus) Are NFT's Bad For Artists? And An Interesting Raise Sampler Mar 20, 2021

Show notes

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 episode that RideHome+ subscribers got this weekend. Less than half the content. If hearing these gives you a bit of FOMO, of course you can always sign up for the RideHome+ feed anytime, at tech.supercast.tech. As always, link to sign up for that feed is in the bottom of the show notes.

Sponsors:

ManlyBands.com/techmeme

Subscribe to the RideHome+ Feed by tapping this link, right here in your podcast app: tech.supercast.tech

Fri. 03/19 – A Rebel Alliance, Led By Facebook, And Born In A Clubhouse Room? Mar 19, 2021

Show notes

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.com
Molekule.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 Everything (SamAltman.com)
Empathetic Robots Are Killing Off the World’s Call-Center Industry (Bloomberg Businessweek)
Loans that hijack your phone are coming to India (Rest of World)
How a social app you’ve never heard of became a haven for Gen Z (Protocol)

Thu. 03/18 – An April Apple Event? Mar 18, 2021

Show notes

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/ride

Links:

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)

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