Techmeme

Patrick McGee / Financial Times:Skydio raises $171M led by a16z at a valuation of $1B+, the first significant fundraising by a US-based drone maker after China's DJI was blacklisted by the US  —  Placement of DJI on trade blacklist has opened new…

Kim Lyons / The Verge:Verizon support is now advising its users on Twitter to “turn on LTE”, which would turn off 5G, to preserve battery life  —  This, despite the carrier's relentless promotion of its 5G network  —  Despite its relentless…

Naomi Klein / The Intercept:Modi's government is abetting a vicious campaign against Indian climate activists simply for using organizing tools like shared Google Docs and WhatsApp groups  —  The bank of cameras that camped outside Delhi's sprawling Tihar…

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:Report: the number of malware strains written in Go have increased by around 2,000% since 2017, after APTs and cybercrime groups adopted the language  —  There's been a 2,000% increase of new malware written in Go over the past few…

Liat Kaplan / New York Times:The person behind “Your Fave Is Problematic” Tumblr blog, which listed regrettable actions by celebrities, says she looks back on her blog with shame and regret  —  What was I trying to accomplish with my anonymous…

Tatiana Cirisano / Billboard:How platforms like Spotify and tools like Community, Audigent, and Unitea help artists find their superfans and target them for monetization opportunities  —  New tech that allows artists to interact with superfans — and turn…

Jason Aten / Inc.com:A look at Clubhouse's privacy flaws: room audio is “temporarily” saved for trust and safety purposes, user accounts or personal data can't be deleted, and more  —  Clubhouse was sort of perfectly made for the pandemic.  People…

Kashmir Hill / New York Times:How ACLU and activist Kade Crockford convinced Massachusetts lawmakers to pass a police reform bill banning the use of facial recognition tech in criminal cases  —  Massachusetts is one of the first states to put legislative…

NBC News:Google, Salesforce, and Microsoft are having mixed results in building statewide vaccination sign-up websites, due to difficulties in integrating county systems  —  As the nation takes on one of the largest logistical challenges in history with…

Chris Dixon / Andreessen Horowitz:NFTs are great for creators because they remove intermediaries, enable granular price tiering, and eliminate customer acquisition costs by making users owners  —  In his classic 2008 essay “1000 True Fans,” Kevin Kelly…

Arielle Pardes / Wired:An ecosystem of startups, features, and tools has sprung up around Clubhouse, and some, like the Clubhouse analytics tool Direcon, are already monetizing  —  A wave of startups, features, and tools has sprung up around the popular…

Andrew Jacobs / New York Times:Critics say the policies of Amazon, Google, and Facebook from the early days of the pandemic to restrict the sale of medical-grade masks are now outdated  —  Scientists are urging Americans to upgrade their face coverings. …

Financial Times:Sources: UK is preparing to announce a new tech visa and a £375M fund, with matching VC funding, to be made available to some promising tech startups  —  Sunak fund intended for groups that need to scale up to next stage of development …

Sarah E. Needleman / Wall Street Journal:Profile of Roblox, which outsources game development to its own players and says more than 300 of such developers earned $100K+ in 2020, ahead of its March IPO  —  The company runs a free social platform with…

Marguerite Reardon / CNET:Mississippi is using some of its $1.2B COVID stimulus on high-speed broadband, which could make it one of the most connected states in the US within six years  —  Mississippi could become a broadband giant. … When Lt. Gov.…