Techmeme: Profile of Dan Purcell, founder of Ceartas, a company that helps adult content creators stop piracy when their content gets stolen from sites like OnlyFans (Bloomberg)

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Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:

Sources: Apple is testing a new external display with a dedicated Apple-made SoC that includes a Neural Engine — Apple's Pro Display XDR has been available for quite some time now, but there are still no rumors about an updated version of its high-priced display in the near term.

More: CNET, FrontPageTech.com, Laptop Mag, Gizmodo, Macworld, MacDailyNews, iThinkDifferent, TechSpot, Redmond Pie, AppleInsider, Trusted Reviews, SlashGear, iPhone Hacks, MacRumors, iPhone in Canada Blog, iMore, and The Mac Observer

James Vincent / The Verge:

Alphabet announces Intrinsic, a new company to build software for industrial robots, as part of its “other bets” that includes Waymo, Wing, and Verily — Intrinsic is one of Alphabet's other bets, like Waymo and Wing — Google's parent-company Alphabet has a birth to announce …

More: X, the moonshot factory, Reuters, Fortune, SiliconANGLE, ZDNet, TechCrunch, The Robot Report, CNET, SlashGear, Protocol, CNBC, fossbytes.com, and VentureBeat

Tweets: @wendytanwhite, @skorusark, and @animesh_garg

Alex Heath / The Verge:

Facebook brings its cloud gaming service to iPhones and iPads through a progressive web app, with games using Facebook Pay to accept in-game purchases — But will people know how to find it? — Starting Friday, Facebook is bringing its nascent cloud gaming service to iPhones and iPads through …

More: mobilesyrup.com, PYMNTS.com, Gamasutra, AppleInsider, Cult of Mac, Engadget, iPhone Hacks, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, iMore, and The Mac Observer. Tweets: @alexeheath

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:

After initially taking down posts with the phrase “Death to Khamenei”, Facebook now says it will allow the chant for a two-week period, amid protests in Iran — After the company took down several posts on Instagram that included the popular protest chant against Iran's ruler …

More: Voice of America, Reuters, and New York Times

Tweets: @caseynewton, @hshaban, @jason_koebler, @johnwilson, @lorenzofb, @katiedrumm, @gartenberg, @epro, and @cwarzel

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

Apple MagSafe Battery Pack review: well integrated with iOS and can charge Qi devices, like AirPods, but doesn't provide full iPhone 12 charge and is expensive — Apple's new MagSafe Battery Pack is a white rectangle you can stick to the back of an iPhone 12 to charge it.

More: 9to5Mac, iThinkDifferent, Ars Technica, MacRumors, YouTube, TechEBlog, iMore, iDrop News, SlashGear, iPhone Hacks, and AppleInsider

Tweets: @backlon, @backlon, @verge, and @backlon

Jon Porter / The Verge:

Google Drive is rolling out the ability for users to block other accounts from sharing files with them, to prevent potential harassment and spam on the service — The new feature is rolling out over the next couple of weeks — Google Drive is adding the ability for users to block …

More: Google Workspace Updates, Ars Technica, Laptop Mag, PCMag, Chrome Unboxed, Android Police, and 9to5Google. Tweets: @dcseifert

Lily Hay Newman / Wired:

Researchers: Apple and Google should provide more access to iOS and Android, to better help catch more attacks by Pegasus-like spyware in real time — Amnesty International sheds alarming light on an NSO Group surveillance tool—and the gaps in Apple and Google's defenses.

More: Zero Day, The Verge, VICE, Qualys Security Blog, MacRumors, CyberNews, and The Mac Security Blog

Tweets: @pimskeks, @kateoflaherty, @sivavaid, @i0n1c, @steipete, @i0n1c, @rj_gallagher, @lasterd80, and @lilyhnewman

Kent Duke / Android Police:

Google is rolling out a fix for a bug in Chrome OS 91, apparently caused by a single typo, which locked Chromebook owners out of devices upon restarting — Google can't seem to catch a break when it comes to Chrome OS 91. First we saw many users reporting their devices using an egregious amount …

More: Ars Technica, Android Central, The Register, XDA Developers, Gizmodo, The Verge, Engadget, XDA Developers, XDA Developers, 9to5Google, OSnews, and Chrome Unboxed

Tweets: @saleemrash1d, @dascandy42, and @trycatchhcf

Jay Greene / Washington Post:

Amazon says it opened an investigation into AWS' culture after an internal petition criticized it for discrimination against women and under-represented groups — The probe comes as more than 550 workers in a cloud-computing unit supported a petition, citing “an underlying culture …

More: CNN, Cindy Warner, New York Times, GeekWire, The Hill, Protocol, and The Verge

Tweets: @greene, @kimmasters, @willoremus, and @nytimestech

Bloomberg:

Sources: China is considering turning online tutoring companies into non-profits, which can't raise capital or go public, clamping down on the $100B industry — - Edtech firms to be banned from going public, foreign capital — Vacation, weekend tutoring for school subjects will be banned

More: TechCrunch and PingWest

Tweets: @pingroma, @haidilun, and @mbrookerhk

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Taboola says it is buying retail- and e-commerce-focused ad network Connexity for $800M in cash and stock — Taboola, the company that operates a popular grid-based advertising and content recommendation network across media properties, today announced an acquisition to expand its reach further …

More: Bloomberg, PYMNTS.com, Taboola.com, AdExchanger, ZDNet, Ad Age, CTech, and Adweek

See also Mediagazer

Mike Peterson / AppleInsider:

Apple updates Apple Music for Android with Spatial Audio and lossless quality streaming — The latest update to the Apple Music app on Android officially introduces support for Apple's lossless and spatial audio features. — Version 3.6 of the Apple Music for Android app …

More: The Verge, Apple Support, TechCrunch, Macworld, Engadget, TechPP, Pocket-lint, MSPoweruser, 9to5Google, MacRumors, iMore, Android Police, mobilesyrup.com, and iDownloadBlog.com

Mark Bergen / Bloomberg:

YouTube has avoided criticism by Biden and others for vaccine misinformation, after Biden criticized Facebook, possibly because its content is harder to track — Hi, it's Mark Bergen. Erin Elizabeth was kicked off Facebook. Elizabeth, owner of an alternative health blog, is one of the …

More: Columbia Journalism Review, Insider, Popular Information, MobiHealthNews, CNN, and NPR

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:

Twitter transparency report: only 2.3% of active accounts have enabled 2FA between July and December 2020; 79.6% of those who did used SMS-based 2FA — Twitter has revealed in its latest transparency report that only 2.3% of all active accounts have enabled at least one method of two-factor authentication …

More: BetaNews. Tweets: @pndc, @quinnypig, @michaelwilsonds, @db, @jake_mooreuk, @karlbode, and @thecrowdfundlaw

Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:

Google updates its “About This Result” panel with more context about the specific search result, including matching keywords, related terms, and local relevance — Google now list several of the factors it used to rank a result in the about this result section.

More: The Keyword, Android Police, Social Media Today, XDA Developers, Android Central, KnowTechie, Search Engine Roundtable, Gizchina, TechRadar, Axios, Reuters, The Verge, MUO, Android Police, 9to5Google, fossbytes.com, searchenginejournal.com, and Slashdot

Tweets: @searchliaison, @aleyda, @howdydoughty, and @lilyraynyc. Thanks:@rustybrick

Christine Hall / TechCrunch:

Paystand, which is building an Ethereum blockchain-based service to enable B2B payments with zero fees, raises $50M Series C, bringing its total raised to $85M — It's pretty easy for individuals to send money back and forth, and there are lots of cash apps from which to choose.

More: SiliconANGLE and Finextra. Tweets: @marceloclaure

Abner Li / 9to5Google:

Google publishes a detailed timeline for the Privacy Sandbox rollout in Chrome, reiterating plans it announced earlier to delay cookie phaseout until H2 2023 — Last month, Google announced that it would delay Chrome's plan to phase out support for third-party cookies.

More: Search Engine Land

Radhamely De Leon / VICE:

Researchers say they embedded malware in up to half of the neurons in the benchmark AlexNet AI model⁠ and still kept the model's accuracy rate above 93.1% — In a proof-of-concept, researchers reported they could embed malware in up to half of an AI model's nodes and still obtain very high accuracy.

More: Ars Technica

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:

Sources: EU antitrust regulators are likely to launch an investigation into Facebook's acquisition of Kustomer after an initial review ends next month — EU antitrust regulators are likely to kick off a full-scale investigation into Facebook's (FB.O) acquisition of U.S. customer service startup Kustomer …

More: PYMNTS.com and Slashdot

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Outbrain closes flat on its first day of trading, after raising $160M in its IPO at a valuation of $1.25B — All the sessions from Transform 2021 are available on-demand now. Watch now. — Outbrain, which provides recommended web links at the bottom of news stories …

Jaewon Kang / Wall Street Journal:

Instacart says it is partnering with Fabric to build robot-equipped warehouses for supermarkets, with space for 10K-50K items, over the next 12 months — The grocery delivery company says it plans to build and operate fulfillment centers for supermarkets — Instacart Inc. is entering …

More: Bloomberg, Instacart Corporate, and supplychaindive.com

Thomas Claburn / The Register:

Sophos researchers say Discord's own CDN is becoming an increasingly popular malware distribution channel, with much of the malware focused on data theft — Biz insists it's trying as hard as possible to scrub clean its IRC-for-the-2020s — Sophos on Thursday warned that internet instant …

Source: Sophos News. Tweets: @thepacketrat

Bloomberg:

Profile of Dan Purcell, founder of Ceartas, a company that helps adult content creators stop piracy when their content gets stolen from sites like OnlyFans — Dan Purcell's transformation into a content protection vigilante began several years ago, with a moment of personal reckoning.

More: Input. Tweets: @athomson6, @chafkin, and @mattnavarra

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