Techmeme
January 6, 2022, 5:15 PM

Top News

Henry Updegrave / Chainalysis:
A record $14B flowed to criminal crypto addresses in 2021, up from $7.8B in 2020, driven by DeFi scams; total crypto transaction volume hit $15.8T, up 567% YoY  —  This blog is a preview of our 2022 Crypto Crime Report.  Sign up here to reserve your copy and we'll email you the full report when it comes out in February!
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify introduces Call-to-Action Cards, a visual ad format for podcasts that puts clickable cards inside show and episode pages  —  Spotify is today introducing is introducing a new ad format aimed at podcasters which it's calling “Call-to-Action Cards” — or CTA cards, for short.
Maria Shen / Electric Capital:
Research: with 4,000+ monthly active developers, Ethereum has the largest open-source crypto ecosystem, followed by Polkadot, Cosmos, Solana, and Bitcoin  —  Executive Summary  —  Web3 developers are at an all-time high and growing faster than ever.  — 18,000+ monthly active developers commit code …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
ESA says E3 2022 will not be held in person and will be an online-only event in the summer due to COVID-19 concerns  —  The Entertainment Software Association is shifting the Electronic Entertainment Expo to an online-only event out of concerns around the pandemic.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
LinkedIn plans to launch interactive, audio-only live events this month in beta for some creators and a video version in the spring  —  LinkedIn, now with more than 800 million people listing their professional profiles to build out their careers, is taking its next steps to get them to spend more time on the platform.
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
Twitter says it is testing an option to let iOS users retweet using a video reaction  —  Twitter on Thursday launched a new feature in its iOS app for a small group of users.  With this option, it's now possible to retweet someone's post and add your own video reaction using your camera.
The Wire:
How Modi's BJP uses an app called Tek Fog, with ShareChat integration, to spread propaganda, target critics on WhatsApp, and hijack Facebook and Twitter trends  —  The Wire investigates claims behind the use of ‘Tek Fog’, a highly sophisticated app used by online operatives to hijack major social media …
Sarah Pringle / Axios:
Sources: IBM is trying again to sell its unprofitable Watson Health division, potentially for $1B+; IBM spent $4B+ on M&A to build Watson Health  —  IBM has resurrected its sale process for IBM Watson Health, with hopes of fetching more than $1 billion, people familiar with the situation tell Axios.
Steven Zeitchik / Washington Post:
On the January 6 riot anniversary, data scientists say AI models can help forecast similar events, as some question their accuracy and potential for misuse  —  A year after the attack on the Capitol, data scientists say artificial intelligence can help forecast insurrection — with some caveats
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
Internet disruption in Kazakhstan, the world's second-biggest bitcoin mining hub, shut down an estimated 15% of the world's miners before internet was restored  —  - The second-biggest country for bitcoin mining lost its internet access, taking as much as 15% of the network offline.
José Adorno / 9to5Mac:
Instagram tests the ability to switch between a Home feed, a Favorites feed, and a Following chronological feed, rolling out to all users in H1 2022  —  Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, announced today that the app is rolling out for some users the ability to switch between different feeds.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apptopia and Sensor Tower: Meta's Oculus app saw 2M downloads across the App Store and Google Play since Christmas Day, with a majority of installs in the US  —  Consumers worldwide have downloaded Meta's Oculus app, the mobile companion for Oculus VR devices including the Quest 2 …
Miles Kruppa / Financial Times:
PitchBook: US startups raised a record $329.8B in 2021, up from a record $166.6B in 2020; over half, or $190.8B, came from $100M+ rounds  —  Sum nearly doubles from 2020 in a financing rush one fund manager deems ‘not rational’  —  Investors poured a record $330bn into private start-ups …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Rupifi, which works with Flipkart, Jumbotail, and other e-commerce companies in India to offer a buy now, pay later service for mom-and-pop shops, raises $25M  —  Rupifi has raised $25 million in a new financing round as the Indian startup, which currently provides buy now …
More: PYMNTS.com

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:
Introducing Zoho Expense MCP: Turn conversations into expense workflows  —  Artificial intelligence (AI) has already changed how we search for information, summarize documents, and analyze data.
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

Lenny's Podcast:
The playbook for building high talent density teams | Adam Ward, Head of Talent at Cursor
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
Demis Steps Down, Apple's Memory Problem, Microsoft's Clever Trick
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:
The White House's Secret A.I. Rules + The State of Model Alignment With METR's Chris Painter + The Final Hot Mess Express
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Oliver Darcy on Status, Bari Weiss, and Why Media Reporters Are Too Soft
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.
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 5:15 PM ET, January 6, 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

Fatos Bytyci / Reuters:
Adi Robertson / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Brave Browser:
Jordan Finneseth / Cointelegraph:
Elisa Braun / Politico:
Li Yuan / New York Times:
Monica Chin / The Verge:
Anna Wiener / New Yorker:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: