Source: Facebook is planning to change its company name to reflect its focus on the metaverse as soon as next week  —  Mark Zuckerberg wants to be known for building the metaverse  —  Facebook is planning to change its company name next week to reflect its focus on building the metaverse …

Microsoft begins letting Windows 11 beta testers try Android apps from the Amazon Appstore, starting with 50 apps  —  Beta Channel testers get access first  —  Microsoft is now allowing Windows 11 testers to try out Android apps.  A preview version of the Windows Subsystem for Android …

Sources: PayPal has approached Pinterest about an acquisition, potentially valuing it at $39B; Pinterest stock had dropped 16% this year but is up 10%+ today  —  PayPal Holdings Inc. is exploring an acquisition of social media company Pinterest Inc., people with knowledge of the matter said, Bloomberg News reports.

US Commerce Department announces rules banning the export or resale of hacking tools to China, Russia, and other countries of concern  —  The Commerce Department on Wednesday announced a long-awaited rule that officials hope will help stem the export or resale of hacking tools to China …

District of Columbia AG Karl Racine plans to add Mark Zuckerberg to an ongoing privacy lawsuit, which began in 2018 following the Cambridge Analytica scandal  —  The District of Columbia case, which grew out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, could expose the chief executive to financial and other penalties.

UK's CMA fines Facebook £50.5M for breaching an order imposed during its ongoing Giphy acquisition investigation, saying Facebook refused to report information  —  Social media giant Facebook has been fined £50.5 million ($69.1 million) for breaching an order imposed …

Sources: China's Oppo is developing high-end mobile chips, using TSMC's 3nm tech, for its premium handsets due out in 2023 or 2024  —  China's top handset maker looks to use TSMC's cutting-edge 3-nm tech  —  TAIPEI — China's leading smartphone maker Oppo is developing high-end mobile chips …

Bitcoin crosses $65,607, an all-time high, after the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF rose by nearly 5% on the NYSE  —  The latest rally appears fueled by the successful debut on Tuesday of the first U.S. bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund.  —  Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency …

Activision Blizzard says 20+ employees, including developers and supervisors, “exited” the company and 20+ faced disciplinary action after misconduct complaints  —  It reprimanded more than 20 others  —  Activision Blizzard says more than 20 employees have “exited” the company …

A look at Ask Delphi, a research project by the Allen Institute for AI that offers answers to ethical dilemmas, often with bewildering responses  —  A fascinating project that's best understood as a cautionary tale  —  Got a moral quandary you don't know how to solve?  Fancy making it worse?

[Thread] Analysis of FTC's report on Big Tech's startup M&A between 2010 and 2019: half of the deals were <$10M, most had <10 people and were US-based, and more  —  A common talking point in tech anti-trust: big tech companies have made hundreds of acquisitions in recent years, and almost none were reviewed, let along stopped. So, last month the FTC released some actual data, for Google, Apple, FB, Amazon and Microsoft. 🧵 https://twitter.com/...

Brave now uses its own privacy-centric Brave Search instead of Google as the default search engine in its browser  —  As part of its ongoing push to eliminate Google as much as possible from our daily web experiences, Brave is removing Google Search as its default search engine.

Spotify partners with Shopify to let artists list merch on profiles for $29/month to $299/month, starting in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand  —  Spotify on Wednesday announced a new partnership with ecommerce provider Shopify to let artists list merchandise directly on their profiles …

Sources: the recent ransomware attack against Sinclair is linked to Russian group Evil Corp., which changed names to avoid 2019 US sanctions  —  - Evil Corp. said to change names to avoid 2019 U.S. sanctions  — Broadcaster hit with new ransomware strain called Macaw

How Facebook, Apple, Google, Amazon, and others increasingly rival states for geopolitical influence and are reshaping the global order as we know it  —  After rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, some of the United States' most powerful institutions sprang into action to punish the leaders of the failed insurrection.

Samsung updates Galaxy Watch4 with Fall Detection, new watch faces, gesture controls, and more, rolling out in the US and South Korea  —  There have been a few minor updates to the Galaxy Watch 4 since the wearable's debut in August, but today Samsung is releasing its first major update for the product.

Sources: China tells McDonald's to expand its e-renminbi payments system ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics; source says Visa and Nike are also under pressure  —  Digital renminbi issued by central bank draws security concerns from US critics  —  China has told McDonald's to expand …

Report: US memory chip maker Micron Technology to build a $7B plant in Hiroshima to make DRAM chips, with production set to begin in 2024  —  U.S. memory chip maker Micron Technology Inc (MU.O) will build a new factory at its Japanese production site in Hiroshima at a cost of 800 billion yen …

Analysis: Andreessen Horowitz's investment team has grown to 70 in the past four years, up by 170%, outpacing Sequoia, Accel, Lightspeed, and others  —  One of the running jokes among Silicon Valley venture capitalists is that, eventually, all of them will become partners at VC firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Profile of Asana as it announces an Enterprise Work Graph, Workflow Builder, APIs for integrating with CRM tools, and more  —  When people first started to take note of a fledgling company called Asana a dozen years ago, the big news was that it had been started by Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz along …

Animoca Brands, which lets players own in-game items as NFTs, raises $65M at a $2.2B valuation, up from $1B in May  —  Animoca Brands, a prominent investor in non-fungible tokens (NFT) and decentralized gaming, has completed a capital raise of $65 million at a $2.2 billion valuation. the company announced Wednesday.

Q&A with Google executives on the Pixel 6's new Tensor SoC, which has two big ARM Cortex-X1 cores, 2 medium cores, and 4 efficiency cores  —  Learn more about the Google Tensor from the people that designed it.  —  The Pixel 6 is official, with a wild new camera design, incredible pricing, and the new Android 12 OS.

Pinterest redesigns its home feed, adding a Watch tab for short videos and photo albums  —  The redesigned home feed includes two sections: browse and watch.  —  Pinterest said Wednesday it's revamping its home feed, adding a new tab called Watch where people can scroll through short videos or a series of photos.

Invicti Security, which helps companies secure web apps, raises $625M led by Summit Partners; Invicti was created by merging Netsparker and Acunetix in 2017  —  Application security testing startup Invicti Security Ltd. will have bags of money to play with after raising a $625 million funding round led by Summit Partners.