Techmeme
January 21, 2022, 8:10 PM

Top News

Janko Roettgers / Protocol:
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
A group of 34 QA testers at Activision Blizzard's Raven Software vote to unionize with the CWA, and ask the company to voluntarily recognize their union status  —  Microsoft Corp.'s planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. will come with an unexpected and perhaps unwelcome addition: a small group of unionized workers.
Zac Bowden / Windows Central:
Hands-on with a pre-release mid-2018 build of Microsoft's canceled Andromeda OS for dual-screen devices  —  We take a look at Microsoft's canceled Andromeda OS project.  —  Ever wondered what Microsoft's canceled version of Windows for the Surface Duo was going to be like?
Salvador Rodriguez / Wall Street Journal:
Twitter will let iOS users of its Blue subscription service use NFTs as hexagon-shaped profile pictures  —  Service will be available to some users of the company's Blue subscriber service  —  Twitter Inc. will start allowing some users to use nonfungible tokens as their profile pictures …
New York Times:
Twitter terminated its head of security Peiter “Mudge” Zatko this week, and CISO Rinki Sethi will depart in the coming weeks; both execs joined Twitter in 2020  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter shook up the top ranks of its security team this week with the termination of the head …
Tracy Wang / CoinDesk:
CoinGecko: the cryptocurrency industry's market cap fell to ~$1.8T amidst a selloff; in 24 hours, BTC fell to ~$36K, down 10%+, ETH fell to ~$2.6K, down ~13%  —  Cryptocurrencies are getting rekt.  —  Crypto blue-chips bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) breached key $40,000 …
Alana Semuels / TIME:
Intel commits $20B to build at least two semiconductor fabrication plants on a 1,000-acre site by 2025, employing at least 3,000 people in New Albany, Ohio  —  As part of an effort to regain its position as a leading maker of semiconductors amidst a global chip shortage …
Reuters:
Investigation finds that Binance withheld information from regulators and maintained weak checks on customers even as it publicly welcomed government oversight  —  In public, Binance said it welcomed government oversight.  At the same time, the firm was withholding information from regulators …
Karl Evers-Hillstrom / The Hill:
Amazon, at $20.3M, and Meta, at $20.1M, spent record sums on federal lobbying in 2021, both up ~7% YoY; Google spent $9.6M, up 27%; Apple spending fell to $6.5M  —  Amazon and Meta, Facebook's parent company, spent record sums on federal lobbying in 2021 as they fought legislation to limit their expansive market power.
Bloomberg:
IBM to sell part of Watson Health, including image software offerings and extensive data sets, to private equity firm Francisco Partners, sources say for $1B+  —  International Business Machines Corp. agreed to sell part of its IBM Watson Health business to private equity firm Francisco Partners …

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