Techmeme
January 27, 2022, 10:00 PM

Top News

Apple:
Apple reports Q1 revenue of $123.9B, up 11% YoY, net income of $34.6B, up from $28.8B YoY, Services sales of $19.5B, up from $15.8B YoY, iPhone sales of $71.6B  —  Revenue up 11 percent to new all-time record  —  iPhone, Mac, Wearables, and Services revenue reach new all-time highs
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Apple reports Q1 Mac revenue of $10.85B, up 25% YoY, iPad revenue of $7.25B, down 14% YoY, and other products revenue, including Watch, of $14.70B, up 13% YoY  —  - Apple reported its largest single quarter in terms of revenue ever, with sales growing over 11% despite supply challenges and the lingering effects of the pandemic.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
iOS 15.4 beta adds Face ID use with a mask for iPhone 12 and newer, without needing Apple Watch authentication, by recognizing “unique features around the eye”  —  The iOS 15.4 beta that was introduced today added a new feature designed to allow Face ID to be used with a mask and without an Apple Watch for authentication.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
iPadOS 15.4 and macOS Monterey 12.3 betas add the long-delayed Universal Control, which lets users control nearby Macs and iPads with a single mouse or keyboard  —  The iPadOS 15.4 and macOS Monterey 12.3 betas that Apple released today introduce support for Universal Control …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
The UK's CMA says Microsoft has agreed to changes for auto-renewing Xbox subscriptions, including pro-rata refunds, canceling inactive memberships, and more  —  Inactive Xbox subscriptions won't continue to be billed  —  Microsoft is making its Xbox subscriptions a little more flexible after a UK regulator raised concerns.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
FTC: US consumers lost $770M to social media scams in 2021, about 25% of all fraud losses for the year and up 18x from the $42M in losses reported in 2017  —  A growing number of U.S. consumers are getting scammed on social media according to a new report by the Federal Trade Commission …
Derrek Lee / Android Central:
Meta rebrands Oculus Quest as Meta Quest, leading to criticism on social media; the rebrand was originally announced in October  —  “Meta Quest” is just so fetch.  —  What you need to know  — Meta changes the social media accounts of its VR brand to Meta Quest.
Anne Steele / Wall Street Journal:
Spotify is removing Neil Young's music after he gave the company an ultimatum between his music and Joe Rogan's podcast with COVID-19 vaccine misinformation  —  Folk-rock star had over six million monthly listeners on the service, which he blames for spreading fake info about vaccines
Will Douglas Heaven / MIT Technology Review:
OpenAI says InstructGPT, its new GPT-3 version, is better at following instructions, producing less offensive language, less misinformation, and fewer mistakes  —  OpenAI has trained its flagship language model to follow instructions, making it spit out less unwanted text—but there's still a way to go.
CNBC:
Sources: SoftBank COO Marcelo Claure is leaving as soon as today; reports said Claure wanted $2B in compensation and clashed with Son over his responsibilities  —  - SoftBank COO Marcelo Claure is leaving SoftBank today, sources say.  — Claure took over running WeWork after founder Adam Neumann stepped down.
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
The US FCC approves “nutrition labels” forcing ISPs to show prices, speed, and more, plus network management practices like throttling, starting on November 15  —  It's part of the Biden administration's plan to boost market competition  —  Understanding your broadband speeds …
Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Meta says Messenger's e2ee chats and calls are now available to all users, and adds screenshot notifications, media saving, GIFs, and more to encrypted chats  —  You can flick a switch and turn on privacy-protecting encryption without losing features  —  Messenger added end-to-end encrypted …
Maggie Fitzgerald / CNBC:
Robinhood Q4: revenue of $363M, up 14% YoY, 2021 revenue of $1.82B, up 89% YoY, net loss of $423M, MAUs up 48% YoY to 17.3M; stock down 10%+ on weak Q1 guidance  —  - Robinhood anticipates first-quarter revenue of less than $340 million, down 35% compared with 2021.
David Yaffe-Bellany / New York Times:
A growing number of US mayors are embracing crypto and blockchain tech, hoping to create revenue streams with NFTs or mining, attract tech talent, and more  —  This new political breed accepts paychecks in Bitcoin.  The mayors also want to use buzzy new tech like NFTs to raise money for public projects.
The Markup:
Life360 will stop selling users' precise location data and sell aggregate data to two clients down from a dozen, after a report found it's a broker top source  —  The announcement comes after The Markup identified the family tracking app as one of the largest sources of raw data for the location data industry
Evgenia Pismennaya / Bloomberg:
Sources: Putin plans to tax and regulate crypto mining, confining it to regions with electricity surpluses and rejecting the central bank's proposal for a ban  —  President Vladimir Putin backs a Russian government proposal to tax and regulate mining of cryptocurrencies …

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:
How you can grow your business with Zoho One  —  Zoho One is a comprehensive business suite, giving businesses the scalability, stability, security, and features they need for smooth operations.
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:
Thu. 11/14 - The FBI (!) Investigating Polymarket
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 10:00 PM ET, January 27, 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

Mia Sato / The Verge: