Techmeme
January 13, 2022, 6:50 PM

Top News

Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Fortnite returns to iOS, iPadOS, and Android through a closed beta in Nvidia's GeForce Now game streaming service designed to run in mobile browsers  —  Nvidia's GeForce Now is finally bringing Fortnite back to the iPhone  —  Fortnite is back on iOS today... sort of.
NBC News:
The January 6 House committee subpoenas Meta, Alphabet, Reddit, and Twitter after their “inadequate responses” to requests for information about the riot  —  The House committee investigating Jan. 6 on Thursday subpoenaed Reddit, Twitter and the parent companies of Google and Facebook after their …
Meghan Bobrowsky / Wall Street Journal:
Second Life founder Philip Rosedale says he is returning to parent company Linden Research, which he left in 2010, to help it expand into the metaverse  —  Philip Rosedale is coming back to the digital world he created to help inject growth  —  The founder of Second Life …
Aislinn Keely / The Block:
Near Foundation, which develops the proof-of-stake Near blockchain, raises $150M led by Three-Arrows Capital, with a16z and others participating  —  The NEAR Foundation has closed a $150 million funding round less as it looks to become the hub of an open web3.
Washington Post:
A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduces the TLDR Act, which would require sites and apps to offer easy-to-digest, nutrition label-like summaries of their TOS  —  Happy Thursday!  Below: The FCC proposes new data breach rules for telecom and the White House meets with tech leaders on cyber.
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Austria's data protection watchdog upholds a decision that a website using Google Analytics violates GDPR, a potential issue for US cloud services in Europe  —  A decision by Austria's data protection watchdog upholding a complaint against a website related to its use of Google Analytics does …
Kent Walker / The Keyword:
Following the White House's open-source security summit, Google proposes setting up an organization to serve as a marketplace for open source maintenance  —  We welcomed the opportunity to participate in the White House Open Source Software Security Summit today, building on our work …
Aoyon Ashraf / CoinDesk:
Block says it is building an open-source bitcoin mining system to make mining more “distributed and efficient”, after Jack Dorsey teased the idea in October  —  The payment services company formerly known as Square is open to building new mining computers and is hiring for a new engineering team.
Reuters:
TSMC reports Q4 revenue rose 24.1% YoY to $15.74B as net profit reached $6.01B; capital spending will reach between $40B and $44B in 2022, up from $30B in 2021  —  Taiwanese chip firm TSMC expects strong growth to accelerate in coming years due to booming semiconductor demand …
Coco Feng / South China Morning Post:
China's state-backed Blockchain Services Network plans to roll out infrastructure this month to support NFTs; the NFTs will not be linked to cryptocurrencies  —  The BSN-Distributed Digital Certificate does not support crypto-transacted NFTs, and will allow businesses and individuals …
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
A look at Android 12's rollout, one of the buggiest launches in the past few years, as Samsung and OnePlus pause their stable Android 12-based updates  —  Android 12 is one of the platform's most ambitious updates in recent history, bringing a major design overhaul to every corner of the operating system.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Meta will shut down its video speed dating service Sparked on January 20, after launching it last April and testing it in select markets  —  Meta is shutting down a video speed-dating service it had tested over a good part of last year, the company informed the service's users via a recent email.
Bloomberg:
Twitter's “work from anywhere” policy helped increase the share of US Black and Latinx employees to 9.4% and 8% in 2021, from 6.9% and 5.5% in 2020  —  Twitter Inc.'s early shift to a “work from anywhere” model during the pandemic as well as implementation of a requirement to add …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Baby Shark becomes the first YouTube video to cross 10B views, after becoming the most-viewed YouTube video in November 2020  —  I'm sorry if it's stuck in your head now  —  “Baby Shark” became the most-viewed YouTube video of all time in November 2020, and just over a year later …
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Microsoft hires a law firm to review sexual harassment policies, will issue a report in the spring on results of investigations, including one involving Gates  —  - A review that a law firm will conduct for Microsoft's board on the effectiveness of sexual harassment policies will compare …
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Canalys: worldwide PC shipments grew 15% YoY in 2021 to 341M, the highest annual number since 2012; Apple shipped 28.3% more units, Acer 21.8%, and Dell 18%  —  It would be easy to think PC sales dropped worldwide last year amid chip shortages, but that conventional thinking would be wrong.
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
Krafton, which makes PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, sues Apple and Google, arguing that neither company removed games that allegedly copy PUBG  —  (Reuters) - The maker of the popular game “PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds” says in a new U.S. lawsuit that a Singapore-based company made rip-off versions …
Rachel Pannett / Washington Post:
Privacy advocates criticize police in the German city of Mainz for using data from the Luca COVID-19 contact tracing app for an investigation into a man's death  —  Authorities in Germany are under fire for tracking down witnesses to a potential crime by using data from a mobile phone app …
Martine Paris / Bloomberg:
Apple confirms it removed several Wordle clones from the App Store, after some app developers capitalized on the online guessing game's popularity  —  Apple Inc. removed several Wordle games from its App Store after users confused them with another word-play title popularized by Jimmy Fallon and other celebrities.
Nitasha Tiku / Washington Post:
As newcomers flood to Puerto Rico seeking to build a crypto paradise, attracted by low taxes, locals are skeptical and house prices across San Juan are rising  —  SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Gustavo Diaz Skoff met the crypto utopians in 2018 amid the devastation of Hurricane Maria.
Andrew Deck / Rest of World:
A look at Line's sticker economy, made up of over 4M hobbyist and professional designers; Line's revenue from direct sticker sales was $200M+ in 2020  —  A handful of designers have made their fortunes on the Line app, but now creators fear the market has become saturated.
Mia Sato / The Verge:
A look at the Buy Nothing Project, which grew via Facebook Groups of neighbors gifting unwanted items and which now has 7,000 communities across 44 countries  —  In the same week, Katylin has seen a banana and a boat given away between neighbors, no strings attached.
Martin Matishak / The Record:
US Cyber Command says malware group MuddyWater is tied to Iranian intelligence, the first time the US government has publicly linked the threat actor to Tehran  —  U.S. Cyber Command on Wednesday revealed that a hacking group reputed for its cyberespionage campaigns is actually part of Iran's intelligence apparatus.

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Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Michael McSweeney / The Block:
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Felix Onuah / Reuters:
Justin Hendrix / Tech Policy Press: