Techmeme
February 2, 2022, 3:30 PM

Top News

Jon Porter / The Verge:
Elon Musk announces $500/month Starlink Premium, claiming 150Mbps-500Mbps download speeds, up from 50Mbps-250Mbps, and doubling upload speeds to 20Mbps-40Mbps  —  The new antenna carries an upfront cost of $2500  —  SpaceX's satellite internet service Starlink is getting a pricey new high-performance tier called Starlink Premium.
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
A profile of US hacker P4x, who says he is responsible for ongoing North Korean internet outages and frustrated by the US' lack of response to DPRK attacks  —  Disappointed with the lack of US response to the Hermit Kingdom's attacks against US security researchers, one hacker took matters into his own hands.
Stephanie Bodoni / Bloomberg:
Belgium's data watchdog fines IAB Europe €250K after finding its ad-targeting tool violates GDPR, and orders a “series of remedies” within two months  —  IAB Europe, an association for online advertising companies, was fined 250,000 euros ($282,690) and handed an ultimatum …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
How the acquisitions of Zynga by Take-Two, Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, and Bungie by Sony reveal an industry evolution that extends far beyond gaming  —  Another week, another gaming acquisition.  First Take-Two acquired Zynga, then Microsoft acquired Activision-Blizzard …
Nathan Grayson / Washington Post:
James Vincent / The Verge:
DeepMind details AlphaCode, a new AI coding engine that it says “writes computer programs at a competitive level”  —  AlphaCode is good, but not great — not yet  —  DeepMind has created an AI system named AlphaCode that it says “writes computer programs at a competitive level.”
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Alphabet says its board has approved a 20-for-1 stock split, slated for July 15 with shareholder approval on July 1; Google last split its stock in April 2014  —  - Before the Alphabet rebrand in 2015, Google effectively split its stock with the introduction of a third class of shares.
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Nathan Ingraham / Engadget:
Sharon Pruitt-Young / NPR:
The FBI warns athletes attending the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in China to take burner phones and says the official MY2022 app poses a security risk  —  Athletes on their way to the 2022 Winter Olympics have a new item to add to their packing list: a burner phone.
Wall Street Journal:
A look at the injuries users sustain while gaming with their VR headsets, which commonly come with safety tips like clearing out furniture and staying seated  —  Tally includes broken vases, dislocated shoulders, injured girlfriends; 'Why don't you go to the gym like a normal person?'
Sam Byford / The Verge:
Sony reports Q3 gaming revenue fell 8% YoY to ~$7.09B, operating profit rose 12.1% YoY to ~$810M; Sony shipped 3.9M PS5 consoles, bringing the total to 17.3M  —  The PS4 had sold more at this point  —  Sony shipped just 3.9 million PlayStation 5 consoles in its all-important holiday quarter …
Janko Roettgers / Protocol:
Startups have begun selling and renting out AR spaces tied to real-world addresses, raising questions about who should have the rights to a property's AR layer  —  It's the stuff of nightmares: The other day, I found my property occupied by a stranger, who was renting it out, Airbnb style.
Aditya Kalra / Reuters:
Sources: Indian officials have held tense and heated discussions with Meta, Google, Twitter, ShareChat, and Koo over proactively removing “fake news”  —  Indian officials have held heated discussions with Google, Twitter and Facebook for not proactively removing what they described …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
RudderStack, a customer data management startup founded in 2019, raises a $56M Series B led by Insight Partners, bringing its total funding to $82M  —  RudderStack, a platform that focuses on helping businesses build their customer data platforms to improve their analytics and marketing efforts …
More: FinSMEs
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
How OpenSea became synonymous with the NFT boom, hiding the complexity of ERC-721 transactions for a mass audience; OpenSea made $386M from fees in January 2022  —  On a cold day in January, NFTs started disappearing.  Major services like MetaMask and Twitter were suddenly unable …
Tom Krisher / Associated Press:
NHTSA: Tesla will issue an OTA update for 53,822 cars and SUVs to remove an FSD feature that let vehicles roll through stop signs without coming to a halt  —  DETROIT (AP) — Tesla is recalling nearly 54,000 cars and SUVs because their “Full Self-Driving” software lets them roll through stop signs without coming to a complete halt.

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Prospect:
A running list of the best startups to join  —  We've analyzed thousands of startups using the same data VCs use and distilled our list down to the top 2%.  Discover and join the next Stripe, Airbnb, or Coinbase today.
Zoho:
15 live chat best practices to improve customer support  —  Every interaction customers have with your business shapes their perception about you and can either make them more loyal or send them elsewhere looking for alternatives.
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.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Carolina Reis Oliveira & Alessandra Zonari | OneSkin: Aging Myths, Senescent Cells, and How to Age Slower (#56)
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 05/10 - Apple Apologizes For The "Crush" Ad
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 3:30 PM ET, February 2, 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

Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch: