Techmeme
January 28, 2022, 8:30 PM

Top News

New York Times:
An investigation into the rise of NSO's Pegasus shows its widespread use by the CIA, UAE, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and others; the FBI bought but didn't use it  —  A Times investigation reveals how Israel reaped diplomatic gains around the world from NSO's Pegasus spyware — a tool America itself purchased but is now trying to ban.
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
DeFi service Qubit Finance says a hacker stole ~$80M in Binance coins on January 27 and offers them a bug bounty in exchange for returning the cryptocurrency  —  A threat actor has used an exploit to steal approximately $80 million from Qubit Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) …
Corinne Reichert / CNET:
Counterpoint and IDC: smartphone shipments grew about 5% to 1.35B+ units in 2021; Samsung took the top spot with 270M+ units, followed by Apple with 235M+  —  Companies shipped 1.35 billion smartphones in 2021, a 5.7% increase over the previous year, market researcher IDC said Thursday.
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
After a customer backlash, Google says legacy free G Suite accounts will be able to migrate their data to free, consumer accounts before the July 2022 shutdown  —  Last week, Google essentially told free G Suite users “pay up or lose your account.”  —  There is hope for users of Google's “legacy” free G Suite accounts.
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Internal messages detail Spotify's lax health content policy, as staff are told multiple Joe Rogan podcast episodes “didn't meet the threshold for removal”  —  Leaked messages reveal the company has reviewed every Rogan episode and none ‘meet the threshold for removal’
Alexandra S. Levine / Politico:
AI-driven suicide chat service Crisis Text Line shares anonymized data with for-profit spinoff Loris.ai, which uses it to market its customer service software  —  Crisis Text Line is one of the world's most prominent mental health support lines, a tech-driven nonprofit that uses big data …
Niraj Chokshi / New York Times:
The FAA says it has reached a deal to let Verizon and AT&T expand their 5G cellular service near airports while allowing more aircraft to land safely  —  The federal agency said an agreement with Verizon and AT&T would enable the wireless providers to expand their networks while allowing aircraft to land safely.
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Will Cathcart says WhatsApp has no plans to support RCS, as Meta launches its first marketing push for WhatsApp in the US, touting its privacy compared to SMS  —  The Meta-owned messaging app wants to be as popular in the US as it is everywhere else — will a big marketing push work?
Chris Stead / Finder:
Interview with two Ubisoft executives, who say NFTs are a paradigm shift in gaming and gamers “don't get what a digital secondary market can bring to them”  —  We talk to Nicolas Pouard, VP at Ubisoft's Strategic Innovations Lab, about the launch of Ubisoft Quartz and the Digits NFTs.
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Apple deprecates Python 2.7 in macOS 12.3 and points developers to alternative languages like Python 3; Python ended support for version 2 on January 1, 2020  —  Apple will no longer bundle Python 2.7 with macOS 12.3, according to developer release notes for the upcoming software update.
Jonathan Browning / Bloomberg:
Autonomy founder Mike Lynch loses a $5B UK court battle with HP over false accounting and faces the prospect of extradition to the US  —  Mike Lynch, the Autonomy Corp. founder lost his acrimonious court battle with Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. over false accounting.
James Hale / Tubefilter:
YouTuber Hank Green unfavorably compares TikTok's creator fund, where a creator's revenue falls as more join, to YouTube, which pays a percentage of ad revenue  —  In 2020, TikTok established a creator fund that distributes $200 million annually to creators based in the U.S.
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Microsoft, the DOJ, and 35 US states led by Utah support Epic Games against Apple through amicus briefs filed with the Ninth Circuit appeals court  —  [Update] The Biden Administration is also supporting Epic.  [/Update]  —  Apple just reported record numbers.
Russ Mitchell / Los Angeles Times:
Waymo sues the California DMV to hide its safety details, such as descriptions of driverless car crashes, and says the data should be designated a trade secret  —  Waymo, the driverless car company operating an autonomous taxi fleet in San Francisco, is suing the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
Microsoft Azure Blog:
Microsoft mitigated a 3.47 Tbps DDoS attack on an Azure customer in Asia in November; DDoS attacks in India rose from 2% of all attacks in H1 2021 to 23% in H2  —  This blog post was co-authored by Anupam Vij, Principal PM Manager, and Syed Pasha, Principal Network Engineer, Azure Networking
Vipal Monga / Wall Street Journal:
Shopify denies copyright infringement claims from five publishers and says court is the wrong venue to compel copyright law changes that shield tech companies  —  E-commerce company says it isn't liable for copyright infringement by sellers; has responded to takedown requests
Eva Szalay / Financial Times:
Digital asset trading group Genesis starts accepting “blue-chip” NFTs as collateral for loans and derivatives deals  —  Decision to use the tokens to back crypto deals highlights boom in digital collectibles market  —  Digital asset trading group Genesis has started accepting non-fungible tokens …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
iOS 15.4 beta adds Face ID use with a mask for iPhone 12 and newer, without needing Apple Watch authentication, by recognizing “unique features around the eye”  —  The iOS 15.4 beta that was introduced today added a new feature designed to allow Face ID to be used with a mask and without an Apple Watch for authentication.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Saheli Roy Choudhury / CNBC:
SoftBank confirms COO Marcelo Claure, who was also SoftBank Group International's CEO, is leaving after nine years; Michel Combes will be the new CEO  —  - Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group confirmed Friday that its Chief Operating Officer Marcelo Claure is leaving the company following a nine-year tenure.
Jillian Deutsch / Bloomberg:
The EU is crafting a Chips Act, similar in size to the US' $52B fund proposal, to attract investment for mega fabs; a proposal will be published on February 8  —  The European Union is gearing up to put potentially billions of euros in state aid toward massive, cutting-edge semiconductor production sites — with strings attached.

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 8:30 PM ET, January 28, 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

David Shepardson / Reuters:

Earlier Picks

Jordan Novet / CNBC:
P R Sanjai / Bloomberg:
Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:
Apple: