Techmeme
January 27, 2022, 8:10 AM

Top News

Anne Steele / Wall Street Journal:
Spotify is removing Neil Young's music after he gave the company an ultimatum between his music and Joe Rogan's podcast with COVID-19 vaccine misinformation  —  Folk-rock star had over six million monthly listeners on the service, which he blames for spreading fake info about vaccines
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is working to let businesses accept payments on their iPhones without extra hardware, thanks to tech from Mobeewave, which it acquired in 2020  —  Apple Inc. is planning a new service that will let small businesses accept payments directly on their iPhones without any extra hardware …
Wall Street Journal:
Source: Meta-backed Diem Association is selling its technology to California bank Silvergate Capital, which serves crypto companies, for ~$200M  —  Diem Association is selling its technology to crypto-focused bank Silvergate Capital for $200 million  —  Facebook's ambitious effort to bring cryptocurrency to the masses has failed.
Sohee Kim / Bloomberg:
Samsung reports Q4 operating profit of ~$11.6B, up 53% YoY, on revenue of ~$63.8B, up 24% YoY, but misses with ~$8.9B net income, below the ~$9.2B expected  —  Samsung Electronics Co. is stepping up spending on advanced chipmaking technology as it sees growing demand for its smartphones, displays and memory products.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Reddit is conducting a “small, internal test” of a feature that lets users set any NFT they own as their profile picture  —  Reddit is testing a feature that would allow its users to set any NFT they own as their profile picture — not only its own Ethereum-based NFTs, called …
Mia Sato / The Verge:
Fanhouse, an OnlyFans-like platform, introduces a 50% surcharge for iOS IAP's, after pushing back in 2021 on Apple's 30% commission on creator earnings  —  Fanhouse previously tried to push back against Apple's fees and was granted a six-month extension to come into compliance
Ina Fried / Axios:
Adobe-led tech coalition finalizes standard for digital content provenance, identifying the source and edits of photos and videos, to help catch deepfakes  —  As part of its effort to fight deepfakes, a coalition of tech companies led by Adobe has finalized the details for a standard …
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.
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.
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.
Lauren Rosenblatt / The Seattle Times:
Washington's AG orders Amazon to pay $2.25M and to shut down its third-party “Sold by Amazon” program over price fixing and unreasonably restraining competition  —  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 …
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:
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 …
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 …
Tonya Riley / CyberScoop:
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Berlin-based Mayd, which offers rapid pharmacy deliveries, raises a €30M Series A led by Lightspeed, following a €13M seed in October 2021  —  Berlin-based Mayd, a startup that's building an on-demand medicine delivery platform in Europe, has fast followed a chunky seed raise last fall …
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Singapore-based Cialfo, which helps international students apply to hundreds of colleges in one form, raises a $40M Series B, bringing its total funding to $55M  —  Applying to colleges is one of the hardest parts of high school, especially for students who want to study abroad.
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 …

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Corin Faife / The Verge: