Techmeme
December 7, 2021, 9:00 AM

Top News

Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
Microsoft seizes 42 domains allegedly used by a Chinese cyber espionage group that targeted organizations in 29 countries including the US  —  Microsoft said today that its legal team has successfully obtained a court warrant that allowed it to seize 42 domains used by a Chinese cyber-espionage group …
Cho Mu-Hyun / ZDNet:
Samsung merges its mobile and consumer electronics divisions into one business unit led by JH Han, and names Kyehyun Kyung as the CEO of its semiconductor unit  —  The Galaxy-device maker's smartphone and TV divisions will now be run by a single CEO.  —  Samsung said on Tuesday it has merged …
Wall Street Journal:
Intel plans to take its Mobileye unit public, sources say at a $50B+ valuation; Intel acquired the self-driving car company in 2017 for about $15B  —  Move could value Mobileye at more than $50 billion, according to people familiar with the matter  —  Intel Corp. is planning to publicly list shares …
The Markup:
Sources: Life360, a family safety app with 33M users, has sold users' precise location since 2016 and is one of the location data broker industry's top sources  —  The app is a major source of raw location data for a multibillion-dollar industry that buys, packages, and sells people's movements
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Report: the US DOJ has asked Roblox why it changed “games” to “experiences” on its website, and asked Roblox and other developers to clarify the difference  —  The United States Justice Department is investigating Apple for antitrust issues, and Roblox is an area …
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
Lyft CFO Brian Roberts, who joined the company in 2014 and took it public, leaves to become CFO at NFT marketplace OpenSea  —  Lyft's long-time CFO Brian Roberts, who took the company public, announced Monday that he was departing the ride share company that he joined in 2014 to take the same role at NFT marketplace OpenSea.
David McCabe / New York Times:
Ahead of a congressional hearing, Adam Mosseri outlines forthcoming parental controls for Instagram, including monitoring time spent and deleting posts in bulk  —  Adam Mosseri, the head of the company, is expected to face questions from lawmakers this week about whether social media harms children.
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Microsoft tells its partners that enterprise customers will be charged 20% more for their Office subscriptions if they don't switch to an annual plan in 2022  —  - Microsoft is telling partners that customers will soon be charged 20% more for Office subscriptions if they prefer to keep paying by the month.
Packy McCormick / Not Boring:
The allure of speculative returns on Web3 is attracting talent, who in turn will create opportunities for more people to earn money by doing what they find fun  —  More fun making money, and more money having fun … Today's Not Boring is brought to you by... Mosaic
Jon Porter / The Verge:
WhatsApp now lets users set all one-to-one chats to disappear by default after 24 hours, seven days, or 90 days  —  Its disappearing messages feature is getting an upgrade  —  WhatsApp is adding new functionality to its disappearing messages feature, which lets users set messages in a chat …
Bloomberg:
NFT data shows price differences based on race and gender; the average minimum sale price of darker-skinned male CryptoPunks trails lighter ones  —  Price differences based on race and gender are emerging among the CryptoPunk NFTs.  What do the disparities mean?
Chainalysis Insights:
Rita Liao / TechCrunch:
WeLab, which offers consumer fintech products across Asia, raises $240M and buys Indonesian commercial bank Jasa Jakarta  —  A virtual bank is soon coming to Indonesia.  WeLab, a Hong Kong-based fintech unicorn, announced Tuesday its acquisition of Bank Jasa Jakarta (BJJ), an Indonesian commercial bank.
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Atomico: European tech startups will raise a record $121B in 2021, up from $41B in 2020, with <1% going to early-stage; 98 unicorns were created in 2021  —  - Start-ups in Europe are on track to haul in a record $121 billion in funding this year, according to a report from venture capital firm Atomico.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Facebook Gaming announces Play with Streamer, letting lets creators invite audience members to join a game, launching alongside Pac-Man Community  —  Mark Zuckerberg unveiled that Pac-Man Community is debuting on Facebook Gaming as one of the first games where audiences can play together while spectating.
Antoine Gara / Financial Times:
Sources: Thomas Bravo is raising $35B for tech company buyouts; in 2021, the PE firm acquired RealPage for $10.2B and Proofpoint for $12.3B  —  US-based specialist on an acquisition binge is raising $35bn for more  —  The mood was buoyant when private equity executives congregated at the SuperReturn conference in Berlin last month.
Tweets: @robinwauters
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
London-based Pento, which offers payroll services for SMBs, raises a $35M Series B led by Tiger Global and Avid Ventures, after raising a $15.6M Series A in May  —  One of the biggest pain points for any business, but especially SMEs, is managing payroll.  —  A startup that has built payroll …
More: Tech.eu and VentureBeat
D. T. Max / New Yorker:
An in-depth look at Welshman James Howells' desperate efforts to excavate his local landfill to recover a hard drive with 8,000 bitcoins mined in 2013  —  For years, a Welshman who threw away the key to his cybercurrency stash has been fighting to excavate the local landfill.

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
Do you need a Zoho Partner?  Here's why working with one can benefit you.  —  Zoho offers over 60 applications, each one built for a unique use case.  From sales and marketing to finance, HR, and customer support …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'What's in Louie's Wallet', With Louie Mantia
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Big Technology Podcast:
Leopold Blows Up, OpenAI Drastically Cuts Prices, Microsoft's Best Day
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:
Open Model Wars + Claire Stapleton's Dishy Google Memoir + Substack's Slop Fight
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.
Great Chat:
Tech's short-term era
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.
Access:
Meet the most AI-pilled CEO on Earth
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:00 AM ET, December 7, 2021.

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

Bloomberg:
Kaya Yurieff / The Information:

Earlier Picks

Kevin Breuninger / CNBC:
Mia Sato / The Verge:
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Andrew E. Kramer / New York Times: