Techmeme
April 12, 2022, 8:05 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple has delayed adding a blood pressure monitor to Apple Watch until 2024, possibly 2025, after difficulties with accuracy during testing  —  Apple Inc.'s plan to add a highly anticipated blood-pressure monitor to its smartwatch has hit some snags and the technology isn't expected …
Jonathan Greig / The Record:
Ukrainian officials say they stopped an attack on an energy facility with help from ESET and Microsoft, and identified a new variant of the Industroyer malware  —  Ukrainian officials said they stopped an attack on an energy facility with the help of researchers from ESET and Microsoft.
Matt Burgess / Wired:
DuckDuckGo launches its privacy-focused browser on macOS in beta through a private waiting list  —  DuckDuckGo started out as a private search engine.  Now its web browser is debuting on Macs to rival Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Brave.  —  When Google launched Chrome back in 2008, it changed the web overnight.
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
A profile of a16z VC Chris Dixon, who made early bets on crypto startups like Coinbase; sources: a16z plans to fold its crypto funds back into its central funds  —  The Andreessen Horowitz partner is the new no. 1 on Forbes' 21st annual Midas List of top venture investors, thanks to savvy bets on tokens …
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Sources: two weeks after the launch of CNN+, the premium streaming service has garnered under 10K DAUs, amid reports that CNN has spent ~$300M on the effort  —  - Fewer than 10,000 people are using CNN+ on a daily basis two weeks into its existence, sources said.
Michael Bellusci / CoinDesk:
Cryptocurrency lender Celsius, recently valued at ~$3B, says only accredited US investors will be able to add new assets and earn rewards starting April 15  —  In the US, only accredited investors, and those with coins already in the Earn platform, will be able to earn rewards.
Zack Seward / CoinDesk:
Circle, which maintains the USDC stablecoin, raises $400M from BlackRock, Fidelity, and others, after raising $440M in May 2021  —  BlackRock and Fidelity headlined the stablecoin issuer's latest funding round, which follows a $440 million raise from last May.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
TikTok is rolling out Effect House, which lets creators make AR effects that others can use in videos, to all users after a closed beta test last fall  —  Last August, TechCrunch noted TikTok was working to build its own augmented reality (AR) development platform called Effect House …
New York Times:
Many tech companies, eager to please employees returning to offices, are providing perks like concerts with pop stars, food trucks, and “appreciation events”  —  Tech companies really want their employees to be happy — or at least less annoyed — about returning.
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Apple updates iMovie for iOS and iPadOS with Magic Movie, for automatic movie creation from clips and photos, and storyboards for a template-guided approach  —  Apple is releasing an iMovie update today for iOS and iPadOS. iMovie 3.0 introduces two new major features — storyboards and Magic Movie.
Cheyenne Ligon / CoinDesk:
Former Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith is sentenced to 5+ years in prison and fined $100K for helping North Koreans use cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions  —  Griffith previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate international sanctions for giving a talk at a crypto conference in Pyongyang in 2019.
Ionut Ilascu / BleepingComputer:
RaidForums, used by Lapsus$, Babuk, and other extortion gangs, is seized in a US-led international operation; Europol says the hacking forum had 500K+ users  —  The RaidForums hacker forum, used mainly for trading and selling stolen databases, has been shut down and its domain seized …
Nikkei Asia:
Major iPhone manufacturer Pegatron, Mac manufacturer Quanta, and iPad maker Compal suspend factory operations near Shanghai amid strict COVID-19 measures  —  TAIPEI — Three key Apple suppliers have suspended production in and near Shanghai as strict COVID-19 lockdown measures show signs …
Jill R Shah / Bloomberg:
Filing: Meta spent $26.8M on Mark Zuckerberg's security in 2021, up 6% from 2020, far above other execs, such as Sundar Pichai ($4.3M) and Jeff Bezos ($1.6M)  —  The cost of keeping Mark Zuckerberg safe keeps going up for Meta Platforms Inc., far outstripping what similar technology companies with high-profile executives are spending.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify rebrands companion app Spotify Greenroom as Spotify Live and integrates its live audio capabilities in the main app minus the interactive features  —  As an earlier report had suggested, Spotify today announced it will integrate the live audio capabilities from its companion app …
Akshat Rathi / Bloomberg:
A look at Stripe's $925M Frontier initiative, which funds carbon-removal startups and has received funding from Alphabet, Shopify, Meta, and others  —  Some of the world's largest companies will spend $925 million buying offsets from startups that remove carbon dioxide from the air.
Eric Migicovsky:
On the 10th anniversary of smart watch maker Pebble's Kickstarter launch, its founder says Pebble failed as it tried to expand beyond a hacker user base  —  I've been giving a talk on the importance of learning from failure to every YC batch for last few years.  I wrote this post in 2017 but never published it.
Andi Ortiz / The Wrap:
Last Week Tonight's John Oliver weighed in on data brokers, showing how easy it was to target members of Congress with ads after obtaining their personal info  —  John Oliver escalated his typical shenanigans on Sunday night's episode of “Last Week Tonight,” going from poking fun at politicians to outright blackmailing them.

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