Techmeme
January 28, 2022, 5:25 PM

Top News

New York Times:
An investigation into the rise of NSO's Pegasus shows its widespread use by the CIA, UAE, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and others; the FBI bought but didn't use it  —  A Times investigation reveals how Israel reaped diplomatic gains around the world from NSO's Pegasus spyware — a tool America itself purchased but is now trying to ban.
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Will Cathcart says WhatsApp has no plans to support RCS, as Meta launches its first marketing push for WhatsApp in the US, touting its privacy compared to SMS  —  The Meta-owned messaging app wants to be as popular in the US as it is everywhere else — will a big marketing push work?
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
DeFi service Qubit Finance says a hacker stole ~$80M in Binance coins on January 27 and offers them a bug bounty in exchange for returning the cryptocurrency  —  A threat actor has used an exploit to steal approximately $80 million from Qubit Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) …
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
After a customer backlash, Google says legacy free G Suite accounts will be able to migrate their data to free, consumer accounts before the July 2022 shutdown  —  Last week, Google essentially told free G Suite users “pay up or lose your account.”  —  There is hope for users of Google's “legacy” free G Suite accounts.
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Microsoft, the DOJ, and 35 US states led by Utah support Epic Games against Apple through amicus briefs filed with the Ninth Circuit appeals court  —  [Update] The Biden Administration is also supporting Epic.  [/Update]  —  Apple just reported record numbers.
Corinne Reichert / CNET:
Counterpoint and IDC: smartphone shipments grew about 5% to 1.35B+ units in 2021; Samsung took the top spot with 270M+ units, followed by Apple with 235M+  —  Companies shipped 1.35 billion smartphones in 2021, a 5.7% increase over the previous year, market researcher IDC said Thursday.
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Apple deprecates Python 2.7 in macOS 12.3 and points developers to alternative languages like Python 3; Python ended support for version 2 on January 1, 2020  —  Apple will no longer bundle Python 2.7 with macOS 12.3, according to developer release notes for the upcoming software update.
Alexandra S. Levine / Politico:
AI-driven suicide chat service Crisis Text Line shares anonymized data with for-profit spinoff Loris.ai, which uses it to market its customer service software  —  Crisis Text Line is one of the world's most prominent mental health support lines, a tech-driven nonprofit that uses big data …
Niraj Chokshi / New York Times:
The FAA says it has reached a deal to let Verizon and AT&T expand their 5G cellular service near airports while allowing more aircraft to land safely  —  The federal agency said an agreement with Verizon and AT&T would enable the wireless providers to expand their networks while allowing aircraft to land safely.
Russ Mitchell / Los Angeles Times:
Waymo sues the California DMV to hide its safety details, such as descriptions of driverless car crashes, and says the data should be designated a trade secret  —  Waymo, the driverless car company operating an autonomous taxi fleet in San Francisco, is suing the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
Chris Stead / Finder:
Interview with two Ubisoft executives, who say NFTs are a paradigm shift in gaming and gamers “don't get what a digital secondary market can bring to them”  —  We talk to Nicolas Pouard, VP at Ubisoft's Strategic Innovations Lab, about the launch of Ubisoft Quartz and the Digits NFTs.
Microsoft Azure Blog:
Microsoft mitigated a 3.47 Tbps DDoS attack on an Azure customer in Asia in November; DDoS attacks in India rose from 2% of all attacks in H1 2021 to 23% in H2  —  This blog post was co-authored by Anupam Vij, Principal PM Manager, and Syed Pasha, Principal Network Engineer, Azure Networking
Jonathan Browning / Bloomberg:
Autonomy founder Mike Lynch loses $5B court battle with HP over false accounting; the UK government will now decide whether to extradite him to the US  —  Mike Lynch, the Autonomy Corp. founder lost his acrimonious court battle with Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. over false accounting.
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Alphabet's Google Cloud division forms a group to win blockchain business, hire a slew of blockchain experts, and possibly accept payments in cryptocurrencies  —  - Alphabet's Google Cloud division is forming a team to win blockchain business after making a concerted effort in retail and other industries.
Saheli Roy Choudhury / CNBC:
SoftBank confirms COO Marcelo Claure, who was also SoftBank Group International's CEO, is leaving after nine years; Michel Combes will be the new CEO  —  - Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group confirmed Friday that its Chief Operating Officer Marcelo Claure is leaving the company following a nine-year tenure.
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:
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

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:
CIO challenge 5: Can we find an effective solution that also minimizes operational costs?  —  Welcome to the next and final installment of our CIO series!  After what feels like a thousand cups of coffee …
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 5:25 PM ET, January 28, 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

James Hale / Tubefilter:

Earlier Picks

P R Sanjai / Bloomberg:
Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post: