Techmeme
January 6, 2022, 12:45 PM

Top News

Henry Updegrave / Chainalysis:
A record $14B flowed to criminal crypto addresses in 2021, up from $7.8B in 2020, driven by DeFi scams; total crypto transaction volume hit $15.8T, up 567% YoY  —  This blog is a preview of our 2022 Crypto Crime Report.  Sign up here to reserve your copy and we'll email you the full report when it comes out in February!
Maria Shen / Electric Capital:
Research: with 4,000+ monthly active developers, Ethereum has the largest open-source crypto ecosystem, followed by Polkadot, Cosmos, Solana, and Bitcoin  —  Executive Summary  —  Web3 developers are at an all-time high and growing faster than ever.  — 18,000+ monthly active developers commit code …
José Adorno / 9to5Mac:
Instagram tests the ability to switch between a Home feed, a Favorites feed, and a Following chronological feed, rolling out to all users in H1 2022  —  Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, announced today that the app is rolling out for some users the ability to switch between different feeds.
Elisa Braun / Politico:
France's data regulator, the CNIL, fines Google €150M and Meta €60M for failing to let French users easily reject cookie trackers  —  PARIS — French data regulator the CNIL is set to fine Google €150 million and Facebook €60 million for violating EU privacy rules.
Steven Zeitchik / Washington Post:
On the January 6 riot anniversary, data scientists say AI models can help forecast similar events, as some question their accuracy and potential for misuse  —  A year after the attack on the Capitol, data scientists say artificial intelligence can help forecast insurrection — with some caveats
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Meta says it is still working on a “highly specialized OS” for its AR/VR devices, and it is not “halting or scaling back” operations in building a reality OS  —  It's still interested in a custom OS  —  Meta reportedly pulled the plug on a custom operating system …
Reuters:
China's copyright authority bans digital music platforms from signing exclusive copyright agreements except in special circumstances  —  China's copyright authority said on Thursday digital music platforms are not allowed to sign exclusive copyright agreements except in special circumstances …
Cherlynn Low / Engadget:
Google partners with Acer, HP, and Intel to bring Fast Pair to select Windows PCs later in 2022 and announces improvements to Phone Hub on Chromebooks  —  Google wants to do for Android and Chrome users what Apple does for people in its ecosystem.  It's announcing a set of news today …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
NetBlocks:
Kazakhstan faces internet disruptions since Tuesday evening and a nationwide blackout on Wednesday afternoon, amid protests over energy price increases  —  Network data from NetBlocks confirm a significant disruption to internet service in Kazakhstan from the evening of Tuesday 4 January 2022 …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
HTC announces the Vive Wrist Tracker, a watch-like controller that tracks hand-to-elbow positions for its Vive Focus 3 VR headset, launching in Q1 2022 for $129  —  Set to launch later this quarter  —  HTC is announcing a new wrist-based controller for its Vive Focus 3 virtual reality headset.
Miles Kruppa / Financial Times:
PitchBook: US startups raised a record $329.8B in 2021, up from a record $166.6B in 2020; over half, or $190.8B, came from $100M+ rounds  —  Sum nearly doubles from 2020 in a financing rush one fund manager deems ‘not rational’  —  Investors poured a record $330bn into private start-ups …
More: PitchBook
Brave Browser:
Brave reports 15.5M+ DAUs and 50M+ MAUs at the end of 2021, up from 24M MAUs at the end of 2020, 10M+ mobile downloads in 2021, and Brave Ads revenue up 4x YoY  —  Brave Search now at 2.3 billion annualized queries  — Key new products from Brave this year included Brave Search …
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Signal quietly made its MobileCoin-based cryptocurrency payments feature available to all users globally in November 2021, after a test in the UK  —  A beta “payments” feature now lets some users of the popular encrypted messaging app send MobileCoin around the globe.

Sponsor Posts

TELUS Digital:
See how your customer experience priorities compare  —  TELUS Digital surveyed leaders about the tech they're investing in, the KPIs they're tracking and their plans for outsourcing.  Get the results.  No form fill required!
Intel:
Intel Delivers powerful CPUs for AI and Networking  —  With the onset of AI, businesses demand powerful and efficient CPUs.  Explore new Intel Xeon 6 processors, for the broadest set of workloads with leadership performance and lower TCO.
Zoho:
The rise of AI in recruitment  —  Note: This is a guest post by our integration partner Ringover.AI has already begun transforming recruitment, but in the coming years, it will reach new heights.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:
Become a better communicator: Specific frameworks to improve your clarity, influence, and impact | Wes Kao (coach, entrepreneur, advisor)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Techmeme Ride Home:
(BNS) The Legality Of The AI Stuff
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Hard Fork:
Tech Stock Shock + Solving the Mystery of OpenAI's "Blip" + Tinder's Flirt-Off
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
BG2 Pod:
Liberation Day, Tariffs, US v China Open Source, OpenAI Fundraise, $CRWV, TikTok
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
What AI anime memes tell us about the future of art and humanity
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Great Chat:
Battle of the startup cities
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:45 PM ET, January 6, 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

Fatos Bytyci / Reuters:

Earlier Picks

Jordan Finneseth / Cointelegraph:
Li Yuan / New York Times:
Anita Ramaswamy / TechCrunch:
Monica Chin / The Verge:
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Anna Wiener / New Yorker:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Sam Machkovech / Ars Technica: