Techmeme
February 1, 2022, 12:55 PM

Top News

The New York Times Company:
The New York Times acquires Wordle, the simple word game that has amassed “millions of daily players”, for “an undisclosed price in the low-seven figures”  —  Wordle, Josh Wardle's stimulating and wildly popular daily word game, is joining The New York Times's portfolio of original …
Maximiliano Firtman / firt.dev:
iOS 15.4 and iPadOS 15.4 beta code shows Apple is working on adding push notifications for web-based apps to Safari  —  iOS 15.4 beta has finally added icon support in the manifest, Web Push, AR, and VR experiments.  —  Twitter @firt About Newsletter  —  About 8 min reading time
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google begins rolling out iMessage reactions for Android's Messages app in beta, appearing next to message bubbles; some emoji reactions are not quite identical  —  As we spotted in November and following the latest push for RCS support on iPhone earlier this month, Google Messages is starting …
David McLaughlin / Bloomberg:
Source: the FTC, not the DOJ, will oversee the US antitrust review of Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition and will focus on potential harm to rivals  —  The U.S. antitrust review of Microsoft Corp.'s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. will be handled by the Federal Trade Commission …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
India proposes a 30% tax on income from the transfer of crypto, NFTs, and other digital assets and will launch a digital rupee in the next financial year  —  India on Tuesday proposed launching digital rupee in within a year and a 30% tax on income from transfer of virtual digital assets …
Taylor Lyles / IGN:
Discord starts letting US PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 users link their PSN accounts and display game activity; support for more countries is coming soon  —  Support will roll out first to US users, though.  —  PlayStation owners will able to connect their accounts to Discord starting today …
John Hendel / Politico:
Nonprofit suicide chat service Crisis Text Line ends its data sharing relationship with for-profit spinoff Loris.ai and asks the company to delete existing data  —  The nonprofit mental-health hotline Crisis Text Line ended its data-sharing relationship with a for-profit spinoff Monday …
Tom Krisher / Associated Press:
NHTSA: Tesla will issue an OTA update for 53,822 cars and SUVs to remove an FSD feature that let vehicles roll through stop signs without coming to a halt  —  DETROIT (AP) — Tesla is recalling nearly 54,000 cars and SUVs because their “Full Self-Driving” software lets them roll through stop signs without coming to a complete halt.
IDC:
Global tablet shipments grew 3.2% YoY to 168.8M in 2021; Apple had 34.2% market share, Samsung had 18.3%, Lenovo had 10.5%, Amazon had 9.5%, and Huawei had 5.7%  —  Worldwide tablet shipments reached 46 million units during the fourth quarter of 2021 (4Q21), posting a decline for the second time since the pandemic began in 2020.
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
Silvergate Bank acquires the Diem Association's tech and other assets by issuing $132M in stock and paying $50M in cash and aims to debut a stablecoin in 2022  —  The Diem Association is shutting down.  —  Silvergate Bank confirmed Monday that it's purchasing the technology and other assets from Diem …
Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Atlantic:
As Tumblr CEO Jeff D'Onofrio quietly departs and the company merges with Automattic, a look at its future plans and enormous impact on the modern social web  —  The CEO of Tumblr—a social platform that was once worth more than $1 billion, and in its time was among the internet's most popular …
Wall Street Journal:
Indian politician Rahul Gandhi writes to Twitter's CEO alleging it has been unwittingly complicit in a government campaign to limit new followers to his account  —  Politician writes to Twitter CEO to complain about curbs he blames on India's government, highlighting how New Delhi polices U.S. social media companies
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Metronome, which offers APIs to help SaaS companies charge customers on a usage basis, raises a $30M Series A led by a16z  —  As more software companies shift to more flexible pricing models based on consumption, many are choosing to charge customers on a per-use, or usage, basis.
Brendan Sinclair / GamesIndustry.biz:
Sony Interactive Entertainment announces it is buying Bungie, which makes Destiny and other games, for $3.6B; Bungie will become an independent subsidiary  —  Destiny studio will remain multiplatform, able “to self-publish and reach players wherever they choose to play”
Craig Timberg / Washington Post:
A whistleblower working with the DOJ says NSO Group offered staffers from US mobile security firm Mobileum “bags of cash” for access to global cellular networks  —  Rep. Ted Lieu asks the Justice Department to investigate after hearing the account of what he called ‘fishy’ behavior.
Christine Hall / TechCrunch:
Lunchbox, which offers restaurants tools for ordering, managing apps, and other tech, raises a $50M Series B led by Coatue after a $20M Series A in October 2020  —  It's not a secret that the restaurant industry was a late adopter of technology, a move that unfortunately left many restaurants unprepared …
More: FinSMEs
Ed Dixon / SportsPro:
Report: crypto-based sports fan platform Iqoniq, which partnered with Spain's LaLiga and others, has entered liquidation; Iqoniq raised €100M in July 2020  —  Fan engagement platform Iqoniq has gone into liquidation, leaving multiple sporting organisations potentially out of pocket.
Josh Scott / BetaKit:
Canadian startup RenoRun, an e-commerce service for construction and building materials, raises a $142M Series B led by Tiger Global and Sozo  —  RenoRun is building a vertically-integrated “one-stop shop” for construction materials.  —  Montréal-based startup RenoRun has raised $181 million CAD …

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Is AI just hype?  —  Find out how top enterprises use Tribe to get real business results.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
All new Zoho Workerly 2024  —  Staffing businesses around the world face a unique set of challenges when it comes to managing their temporary workforce.  With a constantly shifting job market and changing staffing needs …
Comprehensive.io:
Browse salary data from 3,000 startups for free  —  Click for FREE, immediate access to real-time compensation benchmarking data.  Paid version helps HR automate comp reviews and communicate total compensation to employees.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Henry Shukman, Lessons from an Authentic Zen Master
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 03/28 - Claude 3 Opus Surpasses GPT-4 For The First Time
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:55 PM ET, February 1, 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

Earlier Picks

Kim Lyons / The Verge:
Sam Byford / The Verge: