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 …

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
State of AI: Adoption, Challenges and Recommendations  —  Examining the current state of AI, the key challenges organizations face, and practical recommendations for utilizing AI integration alongside other best practices.
SignalFire:
SignalFire raises another $1 billion to back applied AI startups  —  We build AI too.  It tracks 650M tech employees so we can help companies with recruiting and GTM across enterprise, infra, healthcare, security, and consumer.
Zoho:
In-depth bounce reports now in ZeptoMail  —  The ultimate aim of any email sender is to deliver emails to the right recipient's inbox—but even when taking measures to ensure successful delivery, bounces still occur.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
OpenAI Shopping?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Spotlight On:
*S3 Feature* Transcend's Kate Parker on putting data back into the hands of users in an AI-driven world
A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.
Subscribe to Spotlight On.
Invest Like the Best:
Cliff Sosin - Investing in Carvana
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Grit:
From White House to Wall Street: David Rubenstein
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
Inside monday.com's transformation: radical transparency, impact over output, and their path to $1B ARR | Daniel Lereya (Chief Product and Technology Officer)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:10 PM ET, January 21, 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

Kim Lyons / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Jeff Cox / CNBC:
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
Andrew Asmakov / Decrypt:
Mack DeGeurin / Gizmodo: