Techmeme
January 12, 2022, 9:55 PM

Top News

Martine Paris / Bloomberg:
Apple confirms it removed several Wordle clones from the App Store, after reports surfaced about many clones capitalizing on the guessing game's popularity  —  Apple Inc. removed several Wordle games from its App Store after users confused them with another word-play title popularized by Jimmy Fallon and other celebrities.
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Canalys: worldwide PC shipments grew 15% YoY in 2021 to 341M, the highest annual shipments since 2012; Apple's market share grew by 28.3%, Acer's by 21.8%  —  It would be easy to think PC sales dropped worldwide last year amid chip shortages, but that conventional thinking would be wrong.
Sam Reynolds / CoinDesk:
Jack Dorsey and others propose a legal defense fund for Bitcoin developers, citing “multi-front litigation” and “threats”  —  The main purpose of the fund will be to defend developers from from lawsuits regarding their activities in the Bitcoin ecosystem …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Microsoft has hired a veteran semiconductor designer from Apple, as it seeks to develop its own chips for Azure servers  —  Microsoft Corp. lured away a veteran semiconductor designer from Apple Inc. as it looks to expand its own server-chips efforts, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Poynter:
Justin Hendrix / Tech Policy Press:
Over 260 health professionals tell Spotify to implement a misinformation policy, after a Joe Rogan Experience episode featured a discredited scientist  —  More than 260 doctors, nurses, scientists, health professionals and others have signed an open letter calling on the streaming media platform Spotify to …
Martin Matishak / The Record:
US Cyber Command says malware group MuddyWater is tied to Iranian intelligence, the first time the US government has publicly linked the group to Iranian regime  —  U.S. Cyber Command on Wednesday revealed that a hacking group reputed for its cyberespionage campaigns is actually part of Iran's intelligence apparatus.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
App Annie: consumers spent $170B on mobile apps globally in 2021, up 19% YoY, downloading 230B apps; the average American spent 4.1 hours in apps per day  —  Consumer spending on mobile apps reached $170 billion in 2021, according to App Annie's newly released “State of Mobile 2022″ report …
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
FCC proposes stricter data breach reporting rules, including a mandate to notify customers of “inadvertent” breaches, scrapping a one-week wait period, and more  —  The Federal Communications Commission is the next US regulator hoping to hold companies more accountable for data breaches.
Bloomberg:
Sony confirms PlayStation 4 production will continue in 2022, which sources claim will help the company offset some PlayStation 5 production pressure  —  Sony Group Corp. will continue producing PlayStation 4 consoles throughout 2022 as it navigates disruptions to the global supply chain …
Peter Rudegeair / Wall Street Journal:
London-based Checkout.com, which offers payment processing tools, raises $1B in a share sale at a $40B valuation  —  The $1 billion deal vaults the digital-payments processor past all but a handful of other startups  —  Checkout.com didn't raise money from outside investors until 2019.
Michael McSweeney / The Block:
Coinbase says it is acquiring FairX, a CFTC-regulated derivatives exchange, and plans to bring crypto derivatives and futures products to US customers  —  Coinbase is acquiring FairX, a CFTC-regulated derivatives exchange.  —  The exchange company announced the move on Wednesday, saying …
Lucy Harley-Mckeown / The Block:
Coinbase says “nearly the entire company will shut down” across four separate “recharge weeks” for employees in 2022  —  Quick Take  — Coinbase is giving employees four ‘recharge weeks’ off in 2022 in order to counteract what it called an intense working environment.
Chris Metinko / Crunchbase News:
BigPanda, an IT management startup that uses AI to detect and resolve outages, raises $190M led by Advent and Insight at a $1.2B valuation  —  San Francisco-based BigPanda, which helps IT departments keep their digital services running, hit a valuation of $1.2 billion after a $190 million raise …
Felix Onuah / Reuters:
Nigeria will lift its ban on Twitter after suspending it on June 4 last year; Twitter has agreed to open an office in Nigeria, among other agreements  —  Nigeria will lift a ban on Twitter (TWTR.N) from midnight after the social media platform agreed to open a local office …
Bloomberg:
Alphabet Workers Union complains that contract workers receive COVID-19 testing that is inferior to the $949 Cue Health devices given to full-time WFH employees  —  - Full-time employees at home get instant results from Cue  — Contractors in office are offered cheaper mail-in tests

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.
Zoho:
Passkeys Week for a passwordless future: Learn how Zoho is embracing passkeys  —  Passkeys are the modern-day alternative authentication method that was introduced to replace traditional passwords for enhanced security and convenience.
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
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.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Mon. 11/18 - More Smartglasses On The Horizon
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 9:55 PM ET, January 12, 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

Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
Talal Ansari / Wall Street Journal:
Casey Newton / Platformer: