Techmeme
February 1, 2022, 6:55 PM

Top News

Alphabet - Investor Relations:
Alphabet Q4: revenue rose 32% YoY to $75.3B, net income grew from $15.2B to $20.6B YoY, Google Cloud revenue rose from $3.8B to $5.5B YoY; stock jumps 6%+  —  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - February 1, 2022 - Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL) today announced financial results for the quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2021.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google begins rolling out iMessage reactions for Android's Messages app in beta, appearing next to message bubbles; some emoji reactions are not quite identical  —  As we spotted in November and following the latest push for RCS support on iPhone earlier this month, Google Messages is starting …
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
The Google One VPN service, which has been available to Android users since October 2020, comes to iOS for users paying for the 2TB $9.99/month plan or higher  —  The VPN service that's included with a Google One Premium subscription is finally available on iPhones after Google's promise in October 2020 that it would come to iOS.
Tom Krisher / Associated Press:
NHTSA: Tesla will issue an OTA update for 53,822 cars and SUVs to remove an FSD feature that let vehicles roll through stop signs without coming to a halt  —  DETROIT (AP) — Tesla is recalling nearly 54,000 cars and SUVs because their “Full Self-Driving” software lets them roll through stop signs without coming to a complete halt.
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch:
Cruise raises $1.35B more from SoftBank Vision Fund and launches a waitlist for a driverless robotaxi service in San Francisco that will run from 11pm to 5am  —  Cruise is opening up its driverless robotaxi service to the public in San Francisco as the GM subsidiary creeps toward commercialization …
Maximiliano Firtman / firt.dev:
iOS 15.4 and iPadOS 15.4 beta code shows Apple is working on adding push notifications for web-based apps to Safari  —  iOS 15.4 beta has finally added icon support in the manifest, Web Push, AR, and VR experiments.  —  Twitter @firt About Newsletter  —  About 8 min reading time
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
AMD Q4: revenue of $4.83B, up 49% YoY, Computing and Graphics revenue of $2.6B, up 32% YoY, Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom revenue of $2.2B, up 75% YoY  —  - AMD reported fourth quarter earnings after the bell on Tuesday.  — AMD said it expected $21.5 billion in sales in 2022, higher than analyst expectations.
Craig Timberg / Washington Post:
A whistleblower working with the DOJ says NSO Group offered staffers from US mobile security firm Mobileum “bags of cash” for access to global cellular networks  —  Rep. Ted Lieu asks the Justice Department to investigate after hearing the account of what he called ‘fishy’ behavior.
Wall Street Journal:
Amid tech stocks' poor performance, especially IPOs, some venture firms are cutting back investments and startup valuations, as they renegotiate funding deals  —  Venture firms foresee tougher funding environment ahead, with more muted debuts after pandemic glut
Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Atlantic:
As Tumblr CEO Jeff D'Onofrio quietly departs and the company merges with Automattic, a look at its plans and enormous impact on the modern social web  —  The CEO of Tumblr—a social platform that was once worth more than $1 billion, and in its time was among the internet's most popular …
David McLaughlin / Bloomberg:
Source: the FTC, not the DOJ, will oversee the US antitrust review of Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition and will focus on potential harm to rivals  —  The U.S. antitrust review of Microsoft Corp.'s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. will be handled by the Federal Trade Commission …
IDC:
Global tablet shipments grew 3.2% YoY to 168.8M in 2021; Apple had 34.2% market share, Samsung had 18.3%, Lenovo had 10.5%, Amazon had 9.5%, and Huawei had 5.7%  —  Worldwide tablet shipments reached 46 million units during the fourth quarter of 2021 (4Q21), posting a decline for the second time since the pandemic began in 2020.
John Hendel / Politico:
Nonprofit suicide chat service Crisis Text Line ends its data sharing relationship with for-profit spinoff Loris.ai and asks the company to delete existing data  —  The nonprofit mental-health hotline Crisis Text Line ended its data-sharing relationship with a for-profit spinoff Monday …
Dan Taylor / Tech.eu:
Finnish open-source database startup MariaDB raises a $104M Series D and plans for an IPO on the NYSE via a SPAC merger seeking a valuation of ~$672M  —  Finland's MariaDB has closed a $104 million Series D private placement round and announced its intention to become a publicly-traded entity …
Wall Street Journal:
Indian politician Rahul Gandhi writes to Twitter's CEO alleging the company is unwittingly complicit in a government campaign limiting followers to his account  —  Politician writes to Twitter CEO to complain about curbs he blames on India's government, highlighting how New Delhi polices U.S. social media companies
Matt Burgess / Wired:
Internal messages from the Trickbot ransomware gang during 2020 detail its structure, target choices, plans to open St. Petersburg offices, and more  —  Internal messages WIRED has viewed shed new light on the operators of one of the world's biggest botnets.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
India proposes a 30% tax on income from the transfer of crypto, NFTs, and other digital assets and will launch a digital rupee in the next financial year  —  India on Tuesday proposed launching digital rupee in within a year and a 30% tax on income from transfer of virtual digital assets …
Financial Times:
Analysis: Google, Amazon, Meta, and Apple donated $1.2M+ to the four biggest US foreign policy think tanks in 2019-2020, up from $625K+ in 2017-2018  —  Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple battle Washington's move towards stricter regulation using anti-China lobbying
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
SiriusXM rolls out AudioID to track its audience across its apps Pandora and Stitcher and its satellite radio service, offering first-party ad targeting  —  The use of tracking cookies is winding down, and Apple's anti-tracking privacy update has impacted mobile apps' advertising revenues.
More: GizmodoTweets: @danbenjamin

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.
Zoho:
Celebrate and collaborate this holiday season with Zoho Cliq  —  The holiday season is a time for celebration, relaxation, and reflection.  While some people are busy wrapping presents for their loved ones …
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
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.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Mon. 12/23 - The Revenge Of Google Glass?
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 6:55 PM ET, February 1, 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

The New York Times Company:
Brendan Sinclair / GamesIndustry.biz:
Sam Byford / The Verge: