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January 18, 2022, 12:25 PM

Top News

Microsoft:
Microsoft plans to buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7B in cash, or $95/share, closing in FY '23; Activision's stock, which closed last week at $65.39, jumps 27%+  —  Legendary games, immersive interactive entertainment and publishing expertise accelerate growth in Microsoft's Gaming business across mobile, PC, console and cloud.
More: Bloomberg, New York Times, The Verge, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Insider, Engadget, GeekWire, Windows Central, The Register, Protocol, GamesIndustry.biz, HotHardware.com News, PYMNTS.com, PCWorld, appadvice.com, Tom's Hardware, Vox, Variety, Softpedia News, Forbes, BetaNews, Microsoft, Thurrott, PCMag, TechRadar, Android Authority, The Hill, Android Police, Ars Technica, USA Today, Gizmodo, Thurrott, CNN, Reuters, XDA Developers, MacRumors, Windows Central, CNET, Sportico, ZDNet, Axios, VentureBeat, Engadget, Protocol, Associated Press, Washington Post, GamesIndustry.biz, GeekWire, AppleInsider, Financial Times, TechCrunch, purexbox.com, Gizchina, Hit Points, Cross-Play, GameRevolution, thegamer.com, Kotaku, NBC News, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Wccftech, Digital Trends, TechCircle, MSPoweruser, Dot Esports, TouchArcade, OnMSFT.com, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Neowin, Axios, IGN, Cryptonews, OnMSFT.com, The Hollywood Reporter, Polygon, and OnMSFT.com
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft says Xbox Game Pass has 25M subscribers, up from 18M in January 2021  —  Microsoft's all-you-can-eat catalog of games is getting bigger, and now it's adding Activision Blizzard  —  Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass service now has 25 million subscribers.
Andrew Asmakov / Decrypt:
Crypto.com halted withdrawals and requires users to re-sign-in and reset 2FA; research shows Crypto.com lost 4,600+ ETH, worth $15M+, during a suspected hack  —  The crypto exchange has reportedly lost at least $15 million in Ethereum, and security experts believe the true losses could be much higher.
Jeffrey Knockel / The Citizen Lab:
China's MY2022 Olympics app, mandatory for attendees to report travel and health data, has serious encryption flaws and contains censorship keyword lists  —  Key Findings  — MY2022, an app mandated for use by all attendees of the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing, has a simple but devastating flaw …
Canalys:
Apple accounted for 22% of global smartphone shipments in Q4 2021, down from 23% in 2020, followed by Samsung (20%), Xiaomi (12%), Oppo (9%), and Vivo (8%)  —  Shanghai (China), Bengaluru (India), Singapore, Reading (UK) and Portland (US) - Tuesday, 18 January 2022
Joanna Ossinger / Bloomberg:
Animoca Brands, an NFT and metaverse service, raises $359M led by Liberty City at a $5B valuation, up from $2.2B in October 2021  —  Soros Fund Management and the Winklevoss twins' venture capital firm are among investors in a funding round that's more than doubled the valuation of Animoca Brands Corp. …
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
Analysis: Meta has filed dozens of patents to monetize its metaverse, including a virtual store with sponsored items, eye and face tracking in headsets, more  —  Meta hopes to use tiny human expressions to create virtual world of personalised ads  —  Pupil movements, body poses and nose scrunching …
Ashley Rodriguez / Insider:
Social Capital founder and CEO Chamath Palihapitiya says the “ugly truth” is “nobody cares about what's happening” to Uyghurs in China, himself included  —  - Chamath Palihapitiya said “nobody cares about what's happening” to Uyghur Muslims in China.
Cho Mu-Hyun / ZDNet:
Samsung unveils its 4nm Exynos 2200 SoC with an Xclipse GPU using AMD's RDNA 2 architecture, offering hardware-accelerated ray tracing and variable rate shading  —  The processor packs Samsung's own Xclipse GPU based on AMD RDNA 2 architecture that the South Korean company says will offer …
Lucy Harley-Mckeown / The Block:
The UK government will increase scrutiny of crypto ads, bringing the marketing in line with other financial promotions, citing risk to buyers  —  Quick Take  — HM Treasury said it would ramp up scrutiny of crypto advertising in the UK.  — The move will bring crypto marketing within …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Appcues, which offers analytics and no-code tools to fix user onboarding, raises a $32.1M Series B led by NewSpring, says it has ~1,500 customers including Lyft  —  User onboarding has been a longstanding and persistent challenge in the world of apps.  Developers grapple with design …

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Tom Simonite / Wired:
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post: