Techmeme
February 23, 2022, 8:40 PM

Top News

Stuart A. Thompson / New York Times:
As Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, and other right-wing commentators sour on Google, some push DuckDuckGo as an alternative, arguing Google suppresses results  —  The embrace by some conservative influencers and conspiracy theorists is part of a broader effort to shift people away from Big Tech.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
The UK and US say they have identified “Cyclops Blink”, new botnet malware linked to Russian-backed Sandworm hacking group, which appears to replace VPNFilter  —  The Russian government's Sandworm group uses previously unseen Cyclops Blink.  —  Hackers for one of Russia's …
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Trump's Truth Social has been almost entirely inaccessible in its first few days due to technical glitches, a 13-hour outage, and a 300,000-person waitlist  —  Former president Donald Trump, a longtime critic of how Democrats debuted Healthcare.gov, is facing a bungled website launch of his own.
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Mark Zuckerberg showcases a concept for voice-controlled VR space generation, plans for a universal language translator, and more in a Meta livestream  —  'Let's go to the beach'  —  Meta is testing an artificial intelligence system that lets people build parts of virtual worlds by describing them …
BBC:
A researcher posing as a 13-year-old girl used a Meta Quest to access VRChat, and witnessed virtual grooming, sexual material, a rape threat, and racist insults  —  Some apps in the virtual-reality metaverse are “dangerous by design”, the NSPCC has warned in response to a BBC News investigation.
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Intel debuts 12th Gen Alder Lake P-series and U-series CPUs for thinner and lighter laptops, claiming up to 70% better multi-threaded performance over 11th Gen  —  Laptop P-series and U-series chips teased at CES 2022 will arrive in March  —  Intel launched the first wave of its 12th …
Stephen Totilo / Axios:
SEC filing: Activision CEO Bobby Kotick would get $15M if Microsoft fires him without cause; Phil Spencer began acquisition talks three days after WSJ's exposé  —  There are big potential payouts ahead for controversial Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, according to an extensive SEC filing …
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
Microsoft adds Google Cloud support to its Defender for Cloud tool that finds and monitors security weak spots, three months after adding AWS support  —  Microsoft Corp. is expanding its product for finding and monitoring security weak spots in cloud-computing to include rival Alphabet Inc.'s Google Cloud Platform.
Rachel Treisman / NPR:
Center for Countering Digital Hate: Facebook did not label 50.5% of posts linking to 184 climate change denial articles from 10 publishers since May 2021  —  Facebook is falling short on its pledge to crack down on climate misinformation, according to a new analysis from a British watchdog group.
Kellen Browning / New York Times:
Despite letting some employees permanently work from home, tech companies are spending billions of dollars expanding their office spaces across the US  —  Even as they allow some employees to change how often they come into the office, tech companies are rapidly buying and leasing properties around the country.
Jillian Deutsch / Bloomberg:
The EU unveils the Data Act, setting rules on how companies can access anonymized data; cloud providers like AWS and Azure would be forced to simplify switching  —  The European Union unveiled new rules that will make it easier for users to transfer data generated from products like Amazon.com Inc.'s Alexa or a Tesla Inc. vehicle.
Andy Maxwell / TorrentFreak:
Reddit publishes its 2021 transparency report: 297M pieces of content were removed out of 5.8B total, 2,813 users and 2,625 subreddits were permanently banned  —  As one of the more popular user-submitted content sites on the internet today, Reddit and its community moderators have to work hard to keep the platform in order.
Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg:
DappRadar: OpenSea's seven-day trading volume is down 37%, as active traders dropped 19% to ~227K, after a hacker used a phishing attack to steal 254 NFTs  —  Activity on OpenSea, the world's largest marketplace for digital collectibles, likely dropped precipitously after a phishing attack …
The Verge:
Sony reveals the PlayStation VR2's design: lighter, with a lens adjustment dial, new vent layout, and similar white-and-black color scheme  —  This is the PlayStation VR2  —  Sony has finally revealed the design of its next-generation PlayStation VR2 headset, after it announced it in February 2021 …

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Prospect:
A running list of the best startups to join  —  We've analyzed thousands of startups using the same data VCs use and distilled our list down to the top 2%.  Discover and join the next Stripe, Airbnb, or Coinbase today.
Zoho:
The evolution of remote support in telecommunications  —  Remote support, once a novel concept, has now become an indispensable tool in the telecom industry.  It offers a way to troubleshoot issues …
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's Big Week, Did Google Kill The Web, AWS CEO Resigns
The Big Technology Podcast, hosted by journalist Alex Kantrowitz, takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 05/17 - Reddit Embraces Its AI Role
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 8:40 PM ET, February 23, 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

Edd Gent / Singularity Hub:
FinSMEs:
Joan E. Solsman / CNET: