Techmeme
January 26, 2022, 8:25 PM

Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft plans to launch a public preview of Android apps for Windows 11, taskbar improvements, redesigned Notepad and Media Player apps, and more in February  —  New Notepad and Media Player apps also on the way  —  Microsoft is planning to launch a public preview of its Android apps …
Corin Faife / The Verge:
The White House tells agencies to adopt a zero trust cybersecurity strategy, including using hardware-based authentication tools over push notifications or SMS  —  Federal departments will have two months to outline their response  —  The White House released a new cybersecurity strategy Wednesday aimed …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple releases iOS 15.3 and macOS Monterey 12.2 with a fix for the IndexedDB API bug in Safari, as well as iPadOS 15.3, watchOS 8.4, tvOS 15.3, and HomePod 15.3  —  Apple's latest round of software updates is now rolling out to the public. iOS 15.3 is now available to iPhone users …
Ivan Lam / Counterpoint Research:
Smartphone sales in China fell 9% YoY in Q4 2021 as full-year sales dropped 2% YoY; Apple became China's top vendor in Q4 after six years with 23% market share  —  - Smartphone sales in China declined (9% YoY) for the third consecutive quarter in Q4 2021.  — Full-year smartphone sales declined …
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Valve will release the Steam Deck on February 25 and says reservations will be filled in weekly batches, after supply chain issues delayed its launch last year  —  You'll need a reservation  —  Valve announced that the Steam Deck will go on sale starting February 25th.
Ionut Ilascu / BleepingComputer:
Researchers find a 12-year-old vulnerability in Polkit that local attackers can use to gain root privileges on all major Linux distributions; an exploit is out  —  A vulnerability in Polkit's pkexec component that is present in the default configuration of all major Linux distributions …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Discord experienced a widespread API outage, preventing many users from joining calls or chatting; Discord says services are back online after over two hours  —  A major outage was affecting Discord  —  Discord experienced a widespread outage Wednesday afternoon, preventing many users from connecting to the communications app.
Tonya Riley / CyberScoop:
Chris Mills Rodrigo / The Hill:
YouTube permanently bans Fox News' Dan Bongino for trying to evade a previous suspension; the pro-Trump pundit previously said he planned to leave the platform  —  YouTube on Wednesday permanently banned conservative commentator Dan Bongino from the platform, saying he attempted to evade a previous suspension.
Frank Chaparro / The Block:
Crypto exchange FTX's American affiliate, FTX.US, raises $400M at an $8B valuation from Paradigm, SoftBank, Temasek, and others, its first outside funding  —  FTX's American affiliate, FTX.US, has joined the crypto unicorn club after closing its first-ever fundraising round.
Stephanie Bodoni / Bloomberg:
The EU General Court overturns a record €1.06B fine for Intel, levied in 2009 over allegedly squeezing out AMD, saying that EU regulators made key errors  —  Intel Corp. won a historic victory in its court fight over a record 1.06 billion-euro ($1.2 billion) competition fine …
Lauren Rosenblatt / The Seattle Times:
Amazon is ending its third-party “Sold by Amazon” program after Washington's AG found the company engaged in price fixing and the program was anticompetitive  —  Amazon is shutting down its “Sold by Amazon” program after an investigation from Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson found …
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Intel reports Q4 revenue of $19.5B, up 4% YoY vs. estimates of $18.31B, Data Center Group revenue of $7.3B, up 20% YoY, IoT Group revenue of $1.1B, up 36% YoY  —  - Intel reported fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday.  — Intel's largest business, its Client Computing Group …
Dave Lee / Financial Times:
Sources: Amazon has abandoned its campaign of paying warehouse employees to post positive social media messages, started in 2018, after embarrassing backfires  —  Paying warehouse workers to tweet positive comments is dropped after poor reach and embarrassing backfires
Bloomberg:
Swiss bank UBS to acquire robo-adviser Wealthfront, which has 470K+ US clients, for $1.4B in cash, as it aims to use AI to pitch services to the world's wealthy  —  UBS Group AG agreed to buy U.S. robo-adviser Wealthfront for $1.4 billion in cash, as Chief Executive Officer Ralph Hamers tapped …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
After reports of AirTags being used for stalking, Apple releases a Personal Safety User Guide, covering AirTags alerts, information for Android users, and more  —  Apple has launched a new “Personal Safety User Guide” that aggregates details and support documents that can help users “when your personal safety is at risk.”
Abid Rahman / Hollywood Reporter:
Kim Zetter / The Verge:
How hacker Joe Grand used a fault-injection attack to crack a Trezor One hardware wallet to recover $2M in cryptocurrency for two friends who forgot the PIN  —  In early 2018, Dan Reich and a friend decided to spend $50,000 in Bitcoin on a batch of Theta tokens, a new cryptocurrency then worth just 21 cents apiece.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Ryan Wyatt, YouTube's gaming head who oversaw big deals to poach Twitch's star streamers, leaves to grow the developer ecosystem for ETH-focused startup Polygon  —  Ryan Wyatt will be at YouTube until the end of February  —  Ryan Wyatt, YouTube's head of gaming who oversaw some of its big deals …
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Polly, which offers tools to automate customer workflows for the mortgage industry, raises a $37M Series B led by Menlo Ventures  —  Polly, a SaaS technology startup aiming to “transform” the mortgage capital markets, announced today that it has raised $37 million in a Series B funding round led by Menlo Ventures.
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch:
Estonia-based Veriff, which uses AI-powered video to verify identities, raises a $100M Series C led by Tiger Global and Alkeon  —  Identity verification (IDV) provider Veriff, has raised a $100M Series C round co-led by Tiger Global and Alkeon.  They were joined by existing investors IVP and Accel …
More: FinSMEs
Jason Koebler / VICE:
President Biden backs consumers' right to repair and acknowledges the anticompetitive practices of electronics manufacturers  —  “Too many areas, if you own a product, from a smartphone to a tractor, you don't have the freedom to choose how or where to repair that item you purchased.”

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Is AI just hype?  —  Find out how top enterprises use Tribe to get real business results.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
All new Zoho Workerly 2024  —  Staffing businesses around the world face a unique set of challenges when it comes to managing their temporary workforce.  With a constantly shifting job market and changing staffing needs …
Comprehensive.io:
Browse salary data from 3,000 startups for free  —  Click for FREE, immediate access to real-time compensation benchmarking data.  Paid version helps HR automate comp reviews and communicate total compensation to employees.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Henry Shukman, Lessons from an Authentic Zen Master
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Wed. 03/27 - Hulu Comes To Disney+; WWDC Gets A Date
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:25 PM ET, January 26, 2022.

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

Earlier Picks

Eric Martin / Bloomberg: