Techmeme: Sources: the UK quietly approved the controversial sale of Welsh microchip factory Newport Wafer Fab to Nexperia, the Dutch subsidiary of China's Wingtech (Eleni Courea/Politico)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News

April 1, 2022, 11:50 AM

Top News

Ethan Gach / Kotaku:

A dozen current and former employees at Undead Labs, the Xbox studio behind State of Decay 3, describe sexism, mismanagement, and a toxic workplace culture — Staff say Undead Labs' transition to Xbox studio was hampered by toxic workplace conditions and lack of direction

More: Jeff Strain, TheGamer, purexbox.com, Game Developer, Polygon, GamesIndustry.biz, Game Rant, Windows Central, Wccftech, and The Verge

Tweets: @logmey92, @ethangach, @ethangach, @ethangach, @klobrille, @ethangach, @antonhand, and @klobrille

Joe Tidy / BBC:

UK police charge a 16-year-old with five counts and a 17-year-old with six counts related to the Lapsus$ gang; the teenagers remain in custody — Two teenagers from the UK have been charged by police over hacking for a notorious cyber-crime gang. — A 16 and 17-year-old will appear at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court on Friday.

More: City of London Police, CSO, Reuters, TechCrunch, The Register, Engadget, Bloomberg, and Slashdot

Tweets: @joetidy, @citypolice, @campuscodi, and @joetidy

Rebekah Valentine / IGN:

After announcing in January that the in-person E3 2022 was canceled, ESA informs its partners that there will be no digital event equivalent this year either — Though a possible digital event was floated behind the scenes, that too is now off the table. — After previously canceling …

More: Thurrott, VentureBeat, The Verge, Variety, TechCircle, purexbox.com, Laptop Mag, TrueAchievements, PC Gamer, Pocketnow, BGR India, Pocket-lint, Digital Trends, GamingBolt, NintendObs Daily, Pocket Gamer.biz, Destructoid, Gamereactor UK, Slashdot, SlashGear, PC Games Insider, TechSpot, Appuals.com, GameRevolution, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Wccftech, GameSpot, Gameranx, Game Developer, Input, Ars Technica, TechRadar, Engadget, Dexerto, MobileSyrup, Windows Central, Dot Esports, Game Rant, Kotaku, Neowin, GameSpot, Video Games Chronicle, GamesIndustry.biz, Hollywood Reporter, Nintendo World Report Updates, Blue's News, Highlights, and Twinfinite

Tweets: @willjpowers, @jaypeters, @toadsanime, @lamarrwilson, @mrgehab, @doctor_cupcakes, @expanddong15, @nintendofangirl, @antdude92, @russpitts, @dmc_ryan, @jmdornbush, @duckvalentine, @fatalityfalcon, @iansherr, and @tomwarren

Alex Heath / The Verge:

Meta confirms a now-fixed Facebook bug led to a “massive ranking failure” that increased views of harmful content up to 30% over the past six months — A group of Facebook engineers identified a “massive ranking failure” that exposed as much as half of all News Feed views to potential …

Bailey Lipschultz / Bloomberg:

DWAC, Trump's Truth Social SPAC, has lost 31% of its value since the app launched; Apptopia says downloads are down 95% from its peak and the app has ~513K DAUs — Shares of the blank-check firm bringing Donald Trump's media venture public are sinking with daily downloads …

More: The Wrap, The Independent, Daily Mail, Forbes, and Mashable

Tweets: @juddlegum, @fpwellman, @mikesington, and @btlipschultz

Mitchell Clark / The Verge:

Samsung partners with NFT auction service Nifty Gateway to let users “browse, display, and interact with NFTs” on select premium 2022 TVs — It's partnering with Nifty Gateway for its NFT platform — Samsung is making good on its promise from CES 2022 to bring NFTs to its TVs …

More: PR Newswire, TechCircle, Micky, Cryptopolitan, and Cryptonews

Tweets: @karlbode, @barnacules, and @dialacina

Stefanno Sulaiman / Reuters:

An Indonesian tax official says the country will charge VAT on crypto asset transactions and tax capital gains on crypto investments at 0.1% starting on May 1 — Indonesia plans to charge value-added tax (VAT) on crypto asset transactions and an income tax on capital gains from such investments …

More: CoinDesk

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Researchers: an allegedly Russia-tied wiper malware, AcidRain, which shares similarities with the malware VPNFilter, was behind the attack on Viasat in February — AcidRain is the seventh wiper associated with the Russian invasion of Ukraine — Viasat—the high-speed-satellite-broadband …

More: SentinelOne, The Record, Cybersecurity Dive, Telecoms Tech News, TechCrunch, CyberScoop, The Hacker News, Reversemode, cybernews.com, The Register, SiliconANGLE, PCMag, BleepingComputer, and SC Media

Tweets: @780thc, @sentinelone, and @dangoodin001

Emily Birnbaum / Politico:

Apple opposes bills targeting gay and transgender people in Iowa, Texas, Florida, and other states through lobbying, filing court briefs, and recruiting allies — Apple is quietly mobilizing its vast resources to lobby against anti-LGBTQ legislation proliferating across the country …

Tweets: @marceelias, @robininny, and @knowwhatisreal

Anna P. Kambhampaty / New York Times:

A look at @depthsofwikipedia, a viral social media account created by 22-year-old Annie Rauwerda that shares bizarre, amusing, and surprising Wikipedia snippets — On @depthsofwikipedia, Annie Rauwerda is compiling some of the crowdsourced site's most bizarre pages.

Tweets: @yaso, @nytimes, @macmccanntx, @raju, @pomeranian99, @joshuatopolsky, @markyarm, and @anna_p_k

Sponsor Posts

Google:

Try Gemini 3 Pro — Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life

Shopify:

Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26 — Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.

Zoho:

Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control — Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:

OpenAI's 2026 Priority, Disney's AI Play, Datacenter Buildout Trouble

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.

Hard Fork:

Australia Kicks Kids Off Social Media + Is the A.I. Water Issue Fake? + Hard Fork Wrapped

The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Subscribe to Hard Fork.

Access:

Why the next AI frontier is phone calls, with Beside CEO Maxime Germain

A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.

Subscribe to Access.

Great Chat:

So what happens after AGI?

A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.

Subscribe to Great Chat.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling

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.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

Lachlan Cartwright Started in Tabloids. Now He's a Must-Read Media Gossip.

Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.

Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:50 AM ET, April 1, 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.

From Mediagazer

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

Major brands were replaced by direct-response advertisers during commercial breaks of CBS News' December 13 town hall with Erika Kirk, moderated by Bari Weiss

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:

Arkansas PBS severs ties with the PBS network, the first state public TV system to do so since Congress cut CPB funds, citing the annual $2M+ membership cost

Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:

Disney's Zootopia 2 surpasses $1B at the global box office, the fastest PG-rated film to do so after just 17 days in release

Upcoming Tech Events

Jan 4

Samsung "The First Look" media event

Game Developers Conference

More News

Washington Post:

A look at the growing skepticism within Silicon Valley of Russian money, once welcomed with open arms, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine

Tweets: @josephmenn, @josephmenn, @ericgarland, @lukeobrien, @xeni, and @silvermanjacob

Bloomberg:

Interview with DOJ antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter, his first since taking office, on the agency's goals, clamping down on mergers, and more

Tweets: @paulaedwyer, @tina_davis, and @benbrodydc

Henry Ren / Bloomberg:

Three European food delivery stocks, Delivery Hero, Just Eat, and Deliveroo, lost a combined $23.7B, more than half their market value, in the first quarter

Tweets: @ivanlevingston and @business

Kiran Stacey / Financial Times:

A look at the eclectic group of pro-crypto lawmakers in Washington, from libertarians to tech utopians, who were galvanized by the recent infrastructure bill

Tweets: @jimmie_lenz

Tiare Tuuhia / Rest of World:

How homegrown courier services in French Polynesia are building their own online shopping service to fill the gaps left by e-commerce giants in remote islands

More: Transistori. Tweets: @mvzelenks, @sajithpai, @longreads, @khushbuoshea, @nikmilanovic, @restofworld, @vickiturk, @bizboyle, @sarah_drumm, @restofworld, @mvzelenks, @vickiturk, and @joshsternberg

Suzanne Smalley / CyberScoop:

Sources: Biden administration considers changing a Trump-era policy which let DoD and Cyber Command authorize cyber operations without White House approval

Alastair Marsh / Bloomberg:

Q&A with Michael Chobanian, founder of Ukraine's biggest crypto exchange KUNA, on Kyiv's crypto scene before the war, crypto donations and their utility, more

More: Bitcoinist.com. Tweets: @repagonzalez, @itskac, and @alastairjmarsh

Michael H. Keller / New York Times:

To avoid erroneously flagging CSAM, Meta's training docs tell content moderators to “err on the side of an adult” when judging people's age in photos or videos

More: The Verge and Engadget

Tweets: @yashar, @davidgclohessy, and @orinkerr

Earlier Picks

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

New York-based Black Crow AI, which delivers predictive analytics to e-commerce retailers, raises a $25M Series A led by Imaginary Ventures

More: FinSMEs and PR Newswire. Tweets: @primaryvc

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: The White House is split over Kaspersky sanctions, which could spur Russian cyberattacks and make enforcement hard due to the company's large clientele

More: Metacurity, Reuters, and CRN

Tweets: @dnvolz, @janlemnitzer, @peterzeihan, @joel_schectman, @bing_chris, @howelloneill, @wylienewmark, @ericgeller, and @gossithedog