Techmeme
January 19, 2023, 1:30 PM

Top News

Financial Times:
Sources: Peter Thiel's Founders Fund sold most of its crypto portfolio by the end of March 2022, before the crypto market crash, generating ~$1.8B in returns  —  Billionaire was early mainstream investor in the digital currency but VC fund no longer has significant exposure
Wall Street Journal:
In his first interview, FTX CEO John Ray says he has set up a task force to explore restarting the exchange, saying customers praised its technology, and more  —  In his first public interview since taking over the failed cryptocurrency exchange, John J. Ray III said that he's open to the idea of rebooting operations
New York Times:
Alexandra Wexler / Wall Street Journal:
Andy Robinson / Video Games Chronicle:
Sony announces the PlayStation VR2's full launch game lineup, including Tetris Effect and 12 other new titles; the PSVR 2 will not be backwards compatible  —  13 NEW TITLES HAVE BEEN REVEALED FOR THE HEADSET  —  Sony Interactive Entertainment has confirmed the final PlayStation VR 2 launch line-up …
Wall Street Journal:
The Block:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Wikimedia launches an updated Wikipedia design, including improved search and accessibility, a refreshed table of contents, and easier language switching  —  Wikipedia, one of the world's top 10 most visited websites, and a resource used by billions every month, is getting its first makeover on the desktop in over a decade.
Addy Bink / The Hill:
Amazon plans to close AmazonSmile, launched in 2013 to let customers donate 0.5% of eligible items' purchase prices to a charity, on February 20, 2023  —  Amazon will be closing its charity program, AmazonSmile, in the coming weeks in order to “focus its philanthropic giving to programs with greater impact.”
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is working on an iPad-based smart display, with smart home controls, video, and FaceTime, and a new Apple TV with a faster processor for H1 2024  —  Apple Inc. is working on a slate of devices aimed at challenging Amazon.com Inc. and Google in the smart-home market …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Instagram rolls out Quiet Mode, which silences notifications, auto-replies to DMs, and informs friends, and plans to prompt teens to enable the feature at night  —  Instagram announced today it's expanding its selection of time management tools with the launch of a new feature called “Quiet Mode.”
James Eyers / Australian Financial Review:
National Australia Bank creates the AUDN stablecoin, the second major Australian bank after ANZ's A$DC, letting customers settle transactions on the blockchain  —  National Australia Bank has become the second of the major banks to create a stablecoin, called the AUDN, to allow its business customers …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Twitter launches Blue on Android for $11 per month, the same as iOS and $3 more than on the web, a day after launching an $84 annual subscription on the web  —  A day after launching an annual Twitter Blue subscription, the social media company made the paid plan available for purchase for Android users today.
Chris Stokel-Walker / Nature:
Journal editors, researchers, and publishers are debating the place of AI tools like ChatGPT in published literature and whether they should be cited as authors  —  Chris Stokel-Walker is a freelance journalist in Newcastle, UK.  —  You can also search for this author in  —  PubMed Google Scholar
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Mailchimp says a hacker accessed data on 133 accounts via a staff social engineering attack, first detected on January 11, its second breach in six months  —  Email marketing and newsletter giant Mailchimp says it was hacked and that dozens of customers' data was exposed.
Chainalysis:
Analysis: ransomware attackers received at least $456.8M in 2022, a low estimate, down ~40% from ~$766M in 2020 and 2021, as victims increasingly refuse to pay  —  2022 was an impactful year in the fight against ransomware.  Ransomware attackers extorted at least $456.8 million from victims in 2022 …

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More News

The Verge:
Reuters:

Earlier Picks

Jennifer Gollan / ProPublica:
Katie Notopoulos / BuzzFeed News:
Digiday:
Reuters:
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Jon Porter / The Verge: