Techmeme
February 9, 2022, 12:00 PM

Top News

Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Samsung debuts Galaxy S22 Ultra starting at $1,199 with a 6.8" 120Hz display, S-Pen support, up to 1TB of storage, and updated cameras, on sale from February 25  —  It gains an on-board stylus, plus some incremental hardware and software upgrades  —  The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra has shaped …
Sam Rutherford / Engadget:
Hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra: feels like the Note, distinct hardware, mesmerizing display, impressive specs, and welcome S-Pen support  —  This content is not available due to your privacy preferences.  Update your settings here, then reload the page to see it.
Devlin Barrett / Washington Post:
The US DOJ arrests two people in New York and seizes ~$3.6B worth of bitcoin allegedly stolen in a 2016 Bitfinex hack, its “largest financial seizure ever”  —  The Justice Department announced Tuesday it had seized more than $3.6 billion in bitcoin allegedly stolen as part …
More: Bitfinex, New York Times, VICE, Wall Street Journal, Metacurity, BuzzFeed News, CoinDesk, New York Times, Security Affairs, The Pomp Letter, The Hacker News, Decrypt, Cointelegraph, The Economic Times, CNET, Reuters, CoinDesk, Cryptonews, File411's Newsletter, TechSpot, CryptoSlate, Kristaps Mors, In Bitcoin We Trust Newsletter, Input, Bloomberg, Fortune, and CNBC
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Samsung unveils 6.1" Galaxy S22 and 6.6" S22+ with updated cameras, 10Hz-120Hz, and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, coming February 25; S22 starts at $800, S22+ at $1,000  —  Will iterative upgrades cure Samsung's sales problem?  —  By most accounts, last year's Galaxy S21 lineup didn't measure up to Samsung's sales expectations.
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Samsung unveils the $1,100 Tab S8 Ultra, with a 14.6" 120Hz display, 16GB RAM, two front-facing cameras, and Snapdragon Gen 1 chip, shipping later in February  —  The Tab S8 Ultra comes with a giant 14.6-inch display  —  Samsung thinks your tablet is too small.
Phillip Tracy / Gizmodo:
Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra hands-on: a laptop replacement and iPad Pro rival that is unwieldy as a tablet, the screen has a notch, and S-Pen is responsive  —  The high-end Tab S8 Ultra will join the Tab S8 and Tab S8+.  —  Alerts  —  Samsung's new flagship Galaxy Tab S8 tablets have arrived …
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
As Meta dips under a $600B market cap, it may avoid antitrust liability since it falls below the threshold set by recent US House bills as a “covered platform”  —  - Facebook owner Meta closed with a market cap below $600 billion on Tuesday for the first time since May 2020.
Biz Carson / Protocol:
A profile of Sequoia's Roelof Botha, who seeded the idea of Sequoia Capital Fund, which holds stakes in companies past the traditional 10-year VC fund cycle  —  109. One billion dollars.  —  Roelof Botha used to write 109 on the corner of his notepad every week when he started at Sequoia 19 years ago.
Bloomberg:
As crypto tokens fall, FTX and Crypto.com will run Super Bowl ads, seeking new customers; research shows $112.9M+ has been spent on crypto TV ads since 2020  —  It's a testing time for crypto exchanges to be making their Super Bowl ad debuts.  —  Recruiting new users can be simple when prices are skyrocketing.
Darren Loucaides / Wired:
A deep dive into the CEO and history of Telegram, which has about 30 core employees, minimal content moderation, and, until recently, no ongoing revenue  —  Hundreds of millions of users.  No algorithm.  No ads.  Courage in the face of autocracy.  Sound like a dream?  Careful what you wish for.
Will Knight / Wired:
Sony details GT Sophy, an AI built to master Gran Turismo; the research could eventually help develop autonomous vehicles  —  The company built GT Sophy to master the game Gran Turismo, but it may help the development of real self-driving cars. … APPLICATION  —  SECTOR  —  SOURCE DATA
Justine Calma / The Verge:
The WWF hyped and then canceled plans to raise money for conservation with NFTs on Polygon's “eco-friendly blockchain”, a fraught claim dismissed by experts  —  WWF thought it picked a less polluting blockchain  —  Within a few days last week, the World Wildlife Fund hyped …
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
In a bid to appease lawmakers and regulators, Microsoft outlines 11 app store principles, including equal treatment and allowing third-party payment processing  —  The rules comes as Microsoft is attempting to win regulatory approval for the largest deal in the company's history
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Vicarius, an autonomous vulnerability remediation service for supply-chain attacks, raises a $24M Series A led by AllegisCyber Capital and others  —  Vicarius, a New York-based startup that has developed an autonomous vulnerability remediation platform, has raised $24 million in Series …
More: CTech
Olivia Little / Media Matters for America:
TikTok continues to allow ads encouraging ADHD self-diagnosis and medication, geared towards young users and likely violating its medical misinformation policy  —  RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM GIDEON TAAFFE, KAYLA GOGARTY & ABBIE RICHARDS  —  A swarm of advertisements encouraging attention …
Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch:
Egypt-based Thndr, an investing app for stocks and mutual funds in the Middle East and North Africa, raises a $20M Series A led by Tiger Global and others  —  The MENA region has about 400 million people with $500 billion in annual savings.  But as a relatively young population …

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More News

Shubham Agarwal / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

The Intercept:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Bloomberg:
Ben Thompson / Stratechery: