Techmeme
December 7, 2021, 2:25 PM

Top News

Wayne Ma / The Information:
Sources: Tim Cook brokered a secret five-year deal with China in 2016, paving the way for Apple's success by promising to invest $275B+ in the country's economy  —  Interviews and internal Apple documents provide a behind-the-scenes look at how the company made concessions to Beijing and won key legal exemptions.
Richard Lawler / The Verge:
An AWS outage that began around 10:45am ET has led to disruptions for many services including Disney+, Tinder, Roku, Coinbase, Cash App, Amazon Music, and Venmo  —  Amazon says it is working toward a solution  —  Problems for some of Amazon's AWS cloud servers are causing slow loading …
Andrew Hayward / Decrypt:
Ubisoft will add NFT items into its games, starting with Ghost Recon Breakpoint on the Tezos blockchain, becoming the first major gaming company to do so  —  In brief  — Major game publisher Ubisoft will implement in-game NFT items into its games, starting with Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint.
David McCabe / New York Times:
Ahead of a congressional hearing, Adam Mosseri outlines forthcoming parental controls for Instagram, including monitoring time spent and deleting posts in bulk  —  Adam Mosseri, the head of the company, is expected to face questions from lawmakers this week about whether social media harms children.
Cho Mu-Hyun / ZDNet:
Samsung merges its mobile and consumer electronics divisions into one business unit led by JH Han, and names Kyehyun Kyung as the CEO of its semiconductor unit  —  The Galaxy-device maker's smartphone and TV divisions will now be run by a single CEO.  —  Samsung said on Tuesday it has merged …
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
Microsoft seizes 42 domains allegedly used by a Chinese cyber espionage group that targeted organizations in 29 countries including the US  —  Microsoft said today that its legal team has successfully obtained a court warrant that allowed it to seize 42 domains used by a Chinese cyber-espionage group …
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Hands-on with Snap Spectacles, announced in May: lightweight bold design and impressive AR, but overheating and 30-minute battery shows why these aren't on sale  —  Mainstream AR glasses are still years away  —  It doesn't take long to realize why Snap's first true AR glasses aren't for sale.
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
Twitter acquires messaging app Quill, which will shut down and delete all user data on December 11 after launching earlier this year to challenge Slack  —  In February 9to5Mac reported on the launch of a focus-focused Slack competitor called Quill.  Today Twitter is bringing Quill under its wing …
Wall Street Journal:
Intel plans to take its Mobileye unit public in mid-2022, sources say at a $50B+ valuation; Intel acquired the self-driving car company in 2017 for about $15B  —  Move could value Mobileye at more than $50 billion, according to people familiar with the matter
Kenrick Cai / Forbes:
Anyscale, which helps apps run efficiently across distributed infrastructure with the Ray open source framework, raises $100M Series C led by a16z and Addition  —  The UC Berkeley computer science labs, from which seven academics formed $38 billion data startup Databricks, have minted a second billion-dollar business.
Packy McCormick / Not Boring:
The allure of speculative returns on Web3 is attracting talent, who in turn will create opportunities for more people to earn money by doing what they find fun  —  More fun making money, and more money having fun … Today's Not Boring is brought to you by... Mosaic
Eric Geller / Politico:
White House officials met with Google, AT&T, Cloudflare, Mandiant, and others in Silicon Valley to discuss combating state-sponsored hackers and criminal gangs  —  As cyber threats from countries like Russia multiply, officials met with corporate executives to pitch their vision for “operational collaboration.”
More: SlashdotTweets: @ericgeller, @ericgeller, and @ericgeller
D. T. Max / New Yorker:
An in-depth look at Welshman James Howells' desperate efforts to excavate his local landfill to recover a hard drive with 8,000 bitcoins mined in 2013  —  For years, a Welshman who threw away the key to his cybercurrency stash has been fighting to excavate the local landfill.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Report: the US DOJ has asked Roblox why it changed “games” to “experiences” on its website, and asked Roblox and other developers to clarify the difference  —  The United States Justice Department is investigating Apple for antitrust issues, and Roblox is an area …
Bloomberg:
NFT data shows price differences based on race and gender; the average minimum sale price of darker-skinned male CryptoPunks trails lighter ones  —  Price differences based on race and gender are emerging among the CryptoPunk NFTs.  What do the disparities mean?
Anita Ramaswamy / TechCrunch:
Majority, a mobile banking service serving migrants to the US, raises a $27M Series A led by Valar Ventures, six months after its $16M seed round  —  MAJORITY, a mobile banking service for migrants to the United States, said on Tuesday it had raised $27 million in its Series A funding round led by Valar Ventures.
More: FinLedger and Finextra
Bloomberg:
A look at the impact of a COVID-19 outbreak at a STMicroelectronics chipmaking factory in Malaysia, as pressure to increase production overrode safety concerns  —  While companies and governments push to keep supply chains running, ordinary people are the ones putting their lives at risk.
Christine Hall / TechCrunch:
Circle, a community platform where creators can manage content and memberships, raises a $24.7M Series A led by Tiger Global at a $200M post-money valuation  —  Having a thriving community is the backbone for creators, but when the global pandemic hit, brands also found that they needed similar engagement …
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Atomico: European tech startups will raise a record $121B in 2021, up from $41B in 2020, with <1% going to early-stage; 98 unicorns were created in 2021  —  - Start-ups in Europe are on track to haul in a record $121 billion in funding this year, according to a report from venture capital firm Atomico.

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Kaya Yurieff / The Information:
Jordan Novet / CNBC: