Techmeme
February 9, 2022, 7:30 AM

Top News

Devlin Barrett / Washington Post:
The US DOJ arrests two people in New York and seizes ~$3.6B worth of bitcoin allegedly stolen in a 2016 Bitfinex hack, its “largest financial seizure ever”  —  The Justice Department announced Tuesday it had seized more than $3.6 billion in bitcoin allegedly stolen as part …
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
As Meta dips under a $600B market cap, it may avoid antitrust liability since it falls below the threshold set by recent US House bills as a “covered platform”  —  - Facebook owner Meta closed with a market cap below $600 billion on Tuesday for the first time since May 2020.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Microsoft is in talks to acquire cybersecurity research and incident response company Mandiant, whose stock closed up 17.86% on Tuesday  —  Microsoft Corp. is considering making a bid for cybersecurity-research and incident response company Mandiant Inc., according to a person familiar …
Darren Loucaides / Wired:
A deep dive into the CEO and history of Telegram, which has about 30 core employees, minimal content moderation, and, until recently, no ongoing revenue  —  Hundreds of millions of users.  No algorithm.  No ads.  Courage in the face of autocracy.  Sound like a dream?  Careful what you wish for.
Bloomberg:
As crypto tokens fall, FTX and Crypto.com will run Super Bowl ads, seeking new customers; research shows $112.9M+ has been spent on crypto TV ads since 2020  —  It's a testing time for crypto exchanges to be making their Super Bowl ad debuts.  —  Recruiting new users can be simple when prices are skyrocketing.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple unveils Tap to Pay, letting US merchants accept payments with an iPhone and a partner-enabled app “later this year”; partners include Stripe and Shopify  —  Apple has officially announced a new Tap to Pay feature for iPhone.  This feature, coming later this year …
Justine Calma / The Verge:
The WWF hyped and then canceled plans to raise money for conservation with NFTs on Polygon's “eco-friendly blockchain”, a fraught claim dismissed by experts  —  WWF thought it picked a less polluting blockchain  —  Within a few days last week, the World Wildlife Fund hyped …
Ryan Gallagher / Bloomberg:
Twitter tells US Senator Wyden that it's “transitioning” away from using Mitto for passcodes, as the text message services firm faces surveillance accusations  —  Twitter Inc. told a U.S. senator it is cutting ties with a European technology company that helped it send sensitive passcodes to its users via text message.
More: Engadget
Olivia Little / Media Matters for America:
TikTok continues to allow ads encouraging ADHD self-diagnosis and medication, geared towards young users and likely violating its medical misinformation policy  —  RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM GIDEON TAAFFE, KAYLA GOGARTY & ABBIE RICHARDS  —  A swarm of advertisements encouraging attention …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple plans to improve benefits for full- and part-time US retail workers, including doubling paid sick days and increasing PTO, amid a tight labor market  —  Apple Inc. plans to significantly increase its benefits for U.S. retail store workers as it grapples with a tightening labor market …
Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch:
Egypt-based Thndr, an investing app for stocks and mutual funds in the Middle East and North Africa, raises a $20M Series A led by Tiger Global and others  —  The MENA region has about 400 million people with $500 billion in annual savings.  But as a relatively young population …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
A review of digital advertising in 2022, which has shifted from a Google-Meta duopoly to one where Amazon and potentially Apple are major forces  —  Six years ago tomorrow, in The Reality of Missing Out, I wrote that the digital advertising market was settled, and Google and Facebook won:
The Intercept:
Purchase records and docs show that 14 of the 15 US Cabinet departments and several other federal agencies bought Cellebrite phone hacking tools in recent years  —  Investigators with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service frequently work to thwart a variety of environmental offenses …
Shubham Agarwal / The Verge:
Interviews with over a dozen rapid grocery delivery workers in India show they spent months healing after road accidents and had to pay their own medical bills  —  India's instant delivery apps are pushing drivers into accidents  —  Mahesh knew he was running out of time.

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:
5 common accounting mistakes  —  This is a guest post by Yaali Bizappln Solutions.  A lot of businesses manage their customers and finances on separate platforms.  This disconnect often leads to missed invoices …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
(BNS) Brian's Appearance On Daily Detroit
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 7:30 AM ET, February 9, 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

Jay Peters / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Dade Hayes / Deadline:
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Cara Lombardo / Wall Street Journal: