Techmeme
January 13, 2022, 6:30 PM

Top News

Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Fortnite returns to iOS, iPadOS, and Android through a closed beta in Nvidia's GeForce Now game streaming service designed to run in mobile browsers  —  Nvidia's GeForce Now is finally bringing Fortnite back to the iPhone  —  Fortnite is back on iOS today... sort of.
NBC News:
The January 6 House committee subpoenas Meta, Alphabet, Reddit, and Twitter after their “inadequate responses” to requests for information about the riot  —  The House committee investigating Jan. 6 on Thursday subpoenaed Reddit, Twitter and the parent companies of Google and Facebook after their …
Meghan Bobrowsky / Wall Street Journal:
Second Life founder Philip Rosedale says he is returning to parent company Linden Research, which he left in 2010, to help it expand into the metaverse  —  Philip Rosedale is coming back to the digital world he created to help inject growth  —  The founder of Second Life …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Austria's data protection watchdog upholds a decision that a website using Google Analytics violates GDPR, a potential issue for US cloud services in Europe  —  A decision by Austria's data protection watchdog upholding a complaint against a website related to its use of Google Analytics does …
Washington Post:
A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduces the TLDR Act, which would require sites and apps to offer easy-to-digest, nutrition label-like summaries of their TOS  —  Happy Thursday!  Below: The FCC proposes new data breach rules for telecom and the White House meets with tech leaders on cyber.
Kent Walker / The Keyword:
Following the White House's open-source security summit, Google proposes setting up an organization to serve as a marketplace for open source maintenance  —  We welcomed the opportunity to participate in the White House Open Source Software Security Summit today, building on our work …
Reuters:
TSMC reports Q4 revenue rose 24.1% YoY to $15.74B as net profit reached $6.01B; capital spending will reach between $40B and $44B in 2022, up from $30B in 2021  —  Taiwanese chip firm TSMC expects strong growth to accelerate in coming years due to booming semiconductor demand …
Coco Feng / South China Morning Post:
China's state-backed Blockchain Services Network plans to roll out infrastructure this month to support NFTs; the NFTs will not be linked to cryptocurrencies  —  The BSN-Distributed Digital Certificate does not support crypto-transacted NFTs, and will allow businesses and individuals …
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
A look at Android 12's rollout, one of the buggiest launches in the past few years, as Samsung and OnePlus pause their stable Android 12-based updates  —  Android 12 is one of the platform's most ambitious updates in recent history, bringing a major design overhaul to every corner of the operating system.
Bloomberg:
Twitter's “work from anywhere” policy helped increase the share of US Black and Latinx employees to 9.4% and 8% in 2021, from 6.9% and 5.5% in 2020  —  Twitter Inc.'s early shift to a “work from anywhere” model during the pandemic as well as implementation of a requirement to add …
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Microsoft hires a law firm to review sexual harassment policies, will issue a report in the spring on results of investigations, including one involving Gates  —  - A review that a law firm will conduct for Microsoft's board on the effectiveness of sexual harassment policies will compare …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Meta will shut down its video speed dating service Sparked on January 20, after launching it last April and testing it in select markets  —  Meta is shutting down a video speed-dating service it had tested over a good part of last year, the company informed the service's users via a recent email.
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Canalys: worldwide PC shipments grew 15% YoY in 2021 to 341M, the highest annual number since 2012; Apple shipped 28.3% more units, Acer 21.8%, and Dell 18%  —  It would be easy to think PC sales dropped worldwide last year amid chip shortages, but that conventional thinking would be wrong.
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
Krafton, which makes PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, sues Apple and Google, arguing that neither company removed games that allegedly copy PUBG  —  (Reuters) - The maker of the popular game “PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds” says in a new U.S. lawsuit that a Singapore-based company made rip-off versions …
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
Apple says no changes were made in iOS 15.2 that would've toggled iCloud Private Relay off and that no carriers have blocked its users from using the feature  —  Some iPhone users this week noticed that iCloud Private Relay suddenly stopped working with their cellular connections.
Martine Paris / Bloomberg:
Apple confirms it removed several Wordle clones from the App Store, after some app developers capitalized on the online 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.
Nitasha Tiku / Washington Post:
As newcomers flood to Puerto Rico seeking to build a crypto paradise, attracted by low taxes, locals are skeptical and house prices across San Juan are rising  —  SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Gustavo Diaz Skoff met the crypto utopians in 2018 amid the devastation of Hurricane Maria.
Andrew Deck / Rest of World:
A look at Line's sticker economy, made up of over 4M hobbyist and professional designers; Line's revenue from direct sticker sales was $200M+ in 2020  —  A handful of designers have made their fortunes on the Line app, but now creators fear the market has become saturated.

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
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 Ride Home:
Tue. 11/19 - Microsoft Ignite
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 6:30 PM ET, January 13, 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

Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Michael McSweeney / The Block:
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Felix Onuah / Reuters:
Martin Matishak / The Record:
Justin Hendrix / Tech Policy Press: