Techmeme
December 31, 2021, 6:40 AM

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.
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 …
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 …
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
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Apptopia: Amazon ranked #4 in global shopping app installs in 2021, down from first in 2020, as e-commerce apps Shopee and Shein rose to #1 and #2, respectively  —  Amazon's leading position in U.S. e-commerce is well-documented, but the latest global rankings for app installs show the potential …
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  —  The Games Committee has strengthened its stance against P2E games by saying those games should not receive an age rating needed to get listed on app marketplaces.
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  —  For women who assembled iPhones at a Foxconn plant in southern India, crowded dorms without flush toilets and food sometimes crawling …

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
The central nervous system of your business  —  Used by 80% of Fortune 100 companies, Airtable combines AI with the scale of an infinitely flexible, no-code system.  With all your data in one place, it's like mission control for your company.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform  —  Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN.  That's the power of Intel Inside®
Zoho:
AI that actually helps: Practical intelligence in Zoho Workplace  —  Lately, most AI assistants feel like that one over-eager intern who interrupts every five minutes with a suggestion you didn't ask for.At Zoho …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

The Social Radars:
Peter Reinhardt, CEO & co-founder, Charm Industrial; CEO & co-founder, Segment
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Garry Tan, Harj Taggar, and Jared Friedman from YC
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Acquired:
Formula 1
Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.
Subscribe to Acquired.
Big Technology Podcast:
Dario's Choice and Anthropic's Future, Apple's AI Devices, Netflix Loses WBD
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Lenny's Podcast:
The design process is dead. Here's what's replacing it. | Jenny Wen (head of design at Claude)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:40 AM 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.

More News

Rebecca Elliott / Wall Street Journal:
Rebecca Feng / Wall Street Journal:

Earlier Picks

Paul Alcorn / Tom's Hardware:
Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Washington Post: