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December 31, 2021, 12:50 PM
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Top News

Adi Robertson / The Verge:
OpenSea bans PHAYC and Phunky Ape Yacht Club, two NFT projects dueling over which is the authentic Bored Ape Yacht Club ripoff  —  And dodging NFT marketplace bans while doing it  —  A pair of non-fungible token projects are testing the boundary between plagiarism and parody.
New York Times:
A number of women who believe they were tracked with AirTags say Apple's safeguards against stalking are insufficient  —  Privacy groups sounded alarms about the coin-sized location-tracking devices when they were introduced.  Now people are concerned those fears are being realized.
Tim / Droid Life:
Google pauses the rollout of its December update for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro until late January after reports of calls dropping and disconnecting  —  In a bit of frustrating news, Google has confirmed that it has paused the December update for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, aka the first Feature Drop update for the two devices.
Brian Quarmby / Cointelegraph:
Ethereum scaling project Polygon says it quietly fixed a bug that put $23.6B in MATIC tokens at risk, but not before $2.04M in tokens was stolen  —  “Considering how much was at stake, I believe our team has made the best decisions possible given the circumstances,” said Polygon's co-founder Jaynti Kanani.
Brad Linder / Liliputing:
Devices running BlackBerry 10 or OS 7.1 and earlier will lose key services like calling, texting, data usage, and 911 access starting January 4  —  BlackBerry stopped shipping phones and tablets with its own software years ago, switching to Android in 2015 before shifting from a hardware company …
Will Oremus / Washington Post:
Metaverse products from Meta, Microsoft, and others are just 3D virtual social spaces, and lack key features of the metaverse concept, chiefly interoperability  —  Meta's ‘Horizon Worlds’ app, Microsoft and Roblox are capitalizing on a buzzword that's far from reality
Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch:
African tech startups raised a record $4B+ in 2021, more than 2019 and 2020 combined, with more $100M+ rounds than ever before  —  African VC reached new heights in 2021 at over $4 billion and there's never been a better time to be bullish  —  Two years ago, the African tech ecosystem saw newfound attention …
Rebecca Elliott / Wall Street Journal:
Tesla's software engineering expertise let it navigate the global chip shortage by rewriting software to use alternative chips in its cars  —  Electric-vehicle maker is expected to manufacture roughly 80% more vehicles this year than it did in 2020  —  Tesla Inc. has emerged …
Andrés Engler / CoinDesk:
Mexico's central bank plans to issue its own digital currency by 2024, joining Brazil and Peru as Latin American countries working on developing CBDCs  —  The Central Bank of Mexico (Banxico) plans to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC) by 2024, the Mexican government confirmed in a tweet on Wednesday evening.
New York Times:
Investigation: how China identifies, tracks, and pressures its critics on Facebook and Twitter, including Chinese living abroad and citizens of other nations  —  Authorities in China have turned to sophisticated investigative software to track and silence obscure critics on overseas social media.

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:50 PM ET, December 31, 2021.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

Matt Donnelly / Variety:
A look at the auction for the Oscars' TV rights, as sources say Netflix is out, NBCUniversal gains ground, and YouTube and ABC remain active bidders

Dominic-Madori Davis / TechCrunch:
A look at Hamlet, a startup that uses AI to process local government meeting videos and which plans to provide the tool to local journalists for free

Isabella Simonetti / Wall Street Journal:
Vanity Fair and Olivia Nuzzi agree to part ways and let her contract expire at the end of the year, following new allegations about her affair with RFK Jr.

More News

Rebecca Feng / Wall Street Journal:
SenseTime closes up 7.3% in its Hong Kong trading debut after rising as much as 23%; the company raised $740M in its IPO at a $16.4B valuation

Earlier Picks

Reuters:
Six women who work at Foxconn's Indian iPhone plant describe crowded dorms and food crawling with worms, which sickened 250+ workers, leading to protests
Brian Newar / Cointelegraph:
South Korea tells Apple and Google to stop accepting play-to-earn games, which require in-app purchases before playing, and remove existing ones from app stores
Paul Alcorn / Tom's Hardware:
Intel closes the first phase of the sale of its SSD and NAND businesses to SK hynix and says SK hynix's Solidigm subsidiary will operate the Dalian fab in China
Washington Post:
As the US faces record COVID-19 infections, effective use of exposure notification apps is unlikely, given slow adoption and poor data on their efficacy
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