Techmeme
February 2, 2022, 3:35 PM

Top News

Jon Porter / The Verge:
Elon Musk announces $500/month Starlink Premium, claiming 150Mbps-500Mbps download speeds, up from 50Mbps-250Mbps, and doubling upload speeds to 20Mbps-40Mbps  —  The new antenna carries an upfront cost of $2500  —  SpaceX's satellite internet service Starlink is getting a pricey new high-performance tier called Starlink Premium.
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
A profile of US hacker P4x, who says he is responsible for ongoing North Korean internet outages and frustrated by the US' lack of response to DPRK attacks  —  Disappointed with the lack of US response to the Hermit Kingdom's attacks against US security researchers, one hacker took matters into his own hands.
Stephanie Bodoni / Bloomberg:
Belgium's data watchdog fines IAB Europe €250K after finding its ad-targeting tool violates GDPR, and orders a “series of remedies” within two months  —  IAB Europe, an association for online advertising companies, was fined 250,000 euros ($282,690) and handed an ultimatum …
James Vincent / The Verge:
DeepMind details AlphaCode, a new AI coding engine that it says “writes computer programs at a competitive level”  —  AlphaCode is good, but not great — not yet  —  DeepMind has created an AI system named AlphaCode that it says “writes computer programs at a competitive level.”
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
How the acquisitions of Zynga by Take-Two, Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, and Bungie by Sony reveal an industry evolution that extends far beyond gaming  —  Another week, another gaming acquisition.  First Take-Two acquired Zynga, then Microsoft acquired Activision-Blizzard …
Nathan Grayson / Washington Post:
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Alphabet says its board has approved a 20-for-1 stock split, slated for July 15 with shareholder approval on July 1; Google last split its stock in April 2014  —  - Before the Alphabet rebrand in 2015, Google effectively split its stock with the introduction of a third class of shares.
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Nathan Ingraham / Engadget:
Sharon Pruitt-Young / NPR:
The FBI warns athletes attending the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in China to take burner phones and says the official MY2022 app poses a security risk  —  Athletes on their way to the 2022 Winter Olympics have a new item to add to their packing list: a burner phone.
Wall Street Journal:
A look at the injuries users sustain while gaming with their VR headsets, which commonly come with safety tips like clearing out furniture and staying seated  —  Tally includes broken vases, dislocated shoulders, injured girlfriends; 'Why don't you go to the gym like a normal person?'
Sam Byford / The Verge:
Sony reports Q3 gaming revenue fell 8% YoY to ~$7.09B, operating profit rose 12.1% YoY to ~$810M; Sony shipped 3.9M PS5 consoles, bringing the total to 17.3M  —  The PS4 had sold more at this point  —  Sony shipped just 3.9 million PlayStation 5 consoles in its all-important holiday quarter …
Janko Roettgers / Protocol:
Startups have begun selling and renting out AR spaces tied to real-world addresses, raising questions about who should have the rights to a property's AR layer  —  It's the stuff of nightmares: The other day, I found my property occupied by a stranger, who was renting it out, Airbnb style.
Aditya Kalra / Reuters:
Sources: Indian officials have held tense and heated discussions with Meta, Google, Twitter, ShareChat, and Koo over proactively removing “fake news”  —  Indian officials have held heated discussions with Google, Twitter and Facebook for not proactively removing what they described …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
RudderStack, a customer data management startup founded in 2019, raises a $56M Series B led by Insight Partners, bringing its total funding to $82M  —  RudderStack, a platform that focuses on helping businesses build their customer data platforms to improve their analytics and marketing efforts …
More: FinSMEs
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
How OpenSea became synonymous with the NFT boom, hiding the complexity of ERC-721 transactions for a mass audience; OpenSea made $386M from fees in January 2022  —  On a cold day in January, NFTs started disappearing.  Major services like MetaMask and Twitter were suddenly unable …
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.

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Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
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Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch: