Techmeme
January 3, 2021, 12:30 PM

Top News

William C. Gustafson / GitHub:
Developer of Amphetamine says Apple agreed to let the Mac app stay up with its current name and logo, after previously threatening to remove it due to its name  —  Amphetamine is a free app that helps keep your Mac awake.  Amphetamine has been on the Mac App Store since 2014 and it's been downloaded over 432,800 times.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Researchers: more than 100K Zyxel firewalls and VPN gateways have a hardcoded admin-level backdoor that can grant attackers root access to devices  —  The username and password (zyfwp/PrOw!aN_fXp) were visible in one of the Zyxel firmware binaries.  —  More than 100,000 Zyxel firewalls …
New York Times:
Sources: investigators are checking if SolarWinds was hacked via its offices in Czechia, Poland, and Belarus, where the company moved much of its engineering  —  Those behind the widespread intrusion into government and corporate networks exploited seams in U.S. defenses and gave away nothing to American monitoring of their systems.
Wall Street Journal:
An overview of tech to expect in 2021: better webcams, portable UV sanitizers, “assisted reality” glasses, more subscription services attached to hardware  —  New ways to work, exercise, see the doctor, watch movies and sanitize every surface in sight will continue to proliferate.
Mark Sullivan / Fast Company:
35 tech executives, investors, and experts offer their forecasts on tech trends in 2021, from increased investments in remote work to new data governance models  —  As we come to the end of a crazy 2020, many of us are suffering from COVID-19 exhaustion.  But as two vaccines begin their rollouts …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Interview with Atari CEO Fred Chesnais on leveraging the Atari brand, including through hotels and virtual clothing, shipping the VCS console, more  —  Under CEO Fred Chesnais, Atari is a company with just 28 employees.  That's pretty small for the oldest brand in video games.
About Facebook:
Facebook says there were 1.4B+ voice and video calls on WhatsApp on NYE 2020 globally, up 50%+ YoY, and 55M+ live streams across Facebook and Instagram  —  Like all of 2020, last night's New Year's Eve was different.  There were fewer crowds celebrating in the streets around the world.
Alice Gledhill / Bloomberg:
Bitcoin crosses $30K to reach an all-time high, after growing almost 50% in December  —  Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, topped $34,000, just weeks after passing another major milestone.  —  The currency gained as much as 7.8% to $34,182.75, before slipping to about $33,970 as of 3:05 p.m. on Sunday in Singapore.
Karlene Lukovitz / MediaPost:
Parks Associates: 20% of US broadband households currently use ad-supported streaming services and 15% use a freemium service, like Peacock  —  Twenty percent of U.S. broadband households currently use an ad-supported OTT service, and 15% use a “freemium” service, according to Parks Associates research.

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