Techmeme
February 16, 2022, 10:05 AM

Top News

Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:
Mark Zuckerberg outlines changes to Meta's corporate values, including “Move Fast Together”, “Live in the Future”, and “Meta, Metamates, Me”  —  Meta.  Metamates.  Me.  —  At a virtual all-hands meeting on Tuesday, Facebook escalated its attempts …
Daisuke Wakabayashi / New York Times:
Google says it plans to bring Privacy Sandbox to Android, limiting data sharing from smartphones, and promises the changes will be less disruptive than Apple's  —  It says it will give other companies plenty of time to adapt to changes to its Android software.  Similar changes made by Apple affected big internet companies.
DKB:
Google search quality is declining because of too many ads, SEO, and “smart” AI, prompting people to append “reddit” to queries to get more authentic results  —  Reddit is currently the most popular search engine.  The only people who don't know that are the team at Reddit …
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D) and Marsha Blackburn (R) unveil the Kids Online Safety Act, requiring platforms offer users under 16 extra safety and privacy tools  —  A bipartisan pair of senators on Wednesday unveiled a sweeping bill that aims to give parents more control over their children's time online …
IEEE Spectrum:
Blind patients with Second Sight's electronic retinal implants are in danger of losing their artificial vision as the tech becomes obsolete and unsupported  —  Second Sight left users of its retinal implants in the dark  —  Barbara Campbell was walking through a New York City subway station during rush hour …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Twitter expands a beta test of Safety Mode, which temporarily blocks accounts using harmful language in replies, to 50% of users in the US and 5 other markets  —  Twitter is broadening access to a feature called Safety Mode, designed to give users a set of tools to defend themselves …
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Facebook rebrands News Feed to just Feed after more than 15 years  —  The ‘News Feed’ is now just the ‘Feed’  —  Meta is changing the name of Facebook's News Feed, the primary part of the service that users scroll through to see what their friends and family have shared.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Roblox misses with Q4 revenue of $568.8M vs. $604M est., up 83% YoY, average DAUs of 49.5M, up 33% YoY, and average bookings per DAU of $15.57; stock drops 20%+  —  Roblox, the platform for Lego-like user-generated games, reported its bookings for the fourth quarter ended December 31 were $770.1 million …
Monica Chin / The Verge:
Google announces early access to Chrome OS Flex, a version of Chrome OS for businesses and schools that is designed to run on old PCs and Macs  —  It's made for schools and businesses  —  Google has announced early access to a new version of Chrome OS called Chrome OS Flex.
Ilena Peng / Bloomberg:
Shopify beats with Q4 revenue up 41% YoY to $1.38B, as GMV rose 32% YoY to $54.1B, but says FY 2022 revenue growth will be below FY 2021; shares drop 14%+  —  Shopify Inc. said it expects revenue growth to be lower in 2022 than it was last year as online spending resets after the Covid-19 induced boom …
Financial Times:
Sources: the UK Home Office is seeking changes to the Online Safety Bill to require platforms monitor “legal but harmful” content, worrying the tech industry  —  Radical powers in online bill would increase liability of global internet groups beyond current global regulation
Rafaela Lindeberg / Bloomberg:
Ericsson CEO says the company might have made payments to ISIS to gain access to transport routes in Iraq in 2018, causing shares to drop by over 8.5%  —  Ericsson may have made payments to the ISIS terror organization to gain access to certain transport routes in Iraq, in a shock admission following years of regulatory investigations.
Farah Elbahrawy / Bloomberg:
Digital security company Elm, owned by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, rises 30% in its Riyadh trading debut to $44.30 after raising $820M in its IPO  —  Elm Co., a digital security firm owned by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, surged 30% in its trading debut.
More: Arab News
Kyle Alspach / VentureBeat:
Akamai says it will acquire cloud hosting company Linode, which positions itself as an AWS alternative for SMBs and independent developers, for $900M  —  Akamai Technologies announced today it has reached an agreement to acquire infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform provider Linode …

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