Meta beats with Q4 revenue of $33.67B vs. $33.4B est., up 20% YoY, 2.91B MAUs, up 4% YoY, but misses with EPS of $3.67 vs. $3.84 est.; stock down 20%+
- Facebook earnings came in below expectations for the fourth quarter, and the company said numerous challenges are ahead in the first quarter.
Meta reports its first-ever sequential decline in global Facebook daily active users, falling from 1.930B to 1.929B QoQ
Facebook parent Meta's stock nosedives in after-hour trading as the company refocuses on the metaverse. — Facebook parent Meta's quarterly earnings report …
Sources: in a Spotify staff meeting, CEO Daniel Ek said the company sees itself as a platform for, not a publisher of, Joe Rogan's podcast
Los Angeles Times :
Nintendo reports 10.67M Switch sales in Q3, down 8% YoY, bringing lifetime Switch sales to 103.54M, overtaking the Wii's 101.63M in under five years
A good holiday quarter, but Nintendo cut its forecast — The Nintendo Switch had a relatively strong holiday quarter …
Meta opens down 24%+, erasing $200B+ from its market cap, the biggest loss of market value in single day for a US company, after weak Q4 results and Q1 guidance
Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. is set to shed about $200 billion in market value, in what would be one of the biggest …
Blockchain bridge Wormhole confirms a hacker stole $322M worth of ETH and moves its site into maintenance mode; Wormhole is offering a $10M “bug bounty”
A threat actor has abused a vulnerability in the Wormhole cryptocurrency platform to steal an estimated $322 million worth of Ether currency.
Meta breaks out Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp as Family of Apps, with Q4 revenue of $32.8B, up 20% YoY, and will adopt the META ticker in H1 2022
Spotify reports Q4 revenue of €2.69B, up 24% YoY, 406M MAUs, up 18% YoY, and ad-supported revenue of €394M, up 40% YoY and a record 15% of total revenue
he's the #1 podcast in more than 90 markets — he also has to abide by those [content] policies.” —Spotify CEO Daniel Ek (@eldsjal). By my count, first time he has used the name Joe Rogan this week. Lu...
Meta CFO says Apple's ATT privacy changes will cost the company $10B in revenue during 2022 and that Google “faces a different set of restrictions from Apple”
Meanwhile, the company accused Apple of favoring Google over app-based platforms like Facebook with its privacy policies
Report: Microsoft scrapped plans for a HoloLens 3 in 2021, shifting instead to a mixed reality device with Samsung and leaving the HoloLens team “inflamed”
Microsoft turned heads when it first introduced HoloLens, and it even launched a second generation of the mixed reality headset … Source: Insider .
The Conti ransomware group hits major British snack producer KP Snacks, affecting the supply of Skips, Hula Hoops, McCoy's, and others to leading supermarkets
KP Snacks, a major producer of popular British snacks has been hit by the Conti ransomware group affecting distribution to leading supermarkets.
Meta breaks out its AR/VR-focused Reality Labs unit, reporting 2021 revenue of $2.3B, up from $1.1B in 2020, and losses of $10.2B in 2021, up from $6.6B in 2020
Janko Roettgers / Protocol :
The US Senate Judiciary Committee approves the Open App Markets Act, which would allow app sideloading and let developers use their own in-app payment systems
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee today approved the bipartisan Open Markets Act, an antitrust bill that would allow for sideloading and alternate app stores on the iPhone.
Meta and Alphabet are the least diversified of the tech giants, relying on ads for 98% and 81% of revenue, respectively, a long-neglected vulnerability
Alphabet Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc., the world's biggest digital advertising platforms, once again raked in astonishing amounts of money in 2021.
Counterpoint: Apple shipped 2.3M iPhones in India in Q4, up 34% YoY; Xiaomi shipped 9.3M smartphones, up 2% YoY, and Samsung shipped 7.2M, down 8% YoY
Apple Inc. had its strongest quarter for iPhone sales in India yet, a sign the Cupertino, Calif.-based company is finally making progress … Source: Counterpoint Research .
Sources: Israeli surveillance company QuaDream used the zero-click ForcedEntry exploit to break into iPhones in 2021; ForcedEntry was also used by NSO Group
A flaw in Apple's software exploited by Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group to break into iPhones in 2021 was simultaneously abused …
GameStop plans to launch an NFT marketplace in 2022, built on the Ethereum-based Immutable X platform, and is creating an “up to $100M” fund for game developers
It hopes a $100 million fund will make developers use it — GameStop plans to launch its own marketplace for non-fungible tokens …
Audio: Daniel Ek says Spotify needs exclusives for leverage to land deals with Amazon, Google, and others, and he finds many things Rogan says “very offensive”
He says Spotify is a platform, not a publisher — Spotify CEO Daniel Ek addressed employees about the Joe Rogan controversy …
Interview with Satya Nadella on Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition, preparing for the metaverse, the future of gaming and workplaces, and more
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Sources: Yuga Labs, the startup behind Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, is in talks to raise funds from a16z at a $4B-$5B valuation, its first outside funding
NFTs pioneer Yuga Labs seeks $4bn-$5bn valuation from Silicon Valley investor — The start-up behind Bored Ape Yacht Club …
Meta reports Q4 ad revenue of $32.6B, up 20% YoY, but warns sales growth could be 3%-11% in Q1 2022 due to iOS changes, inflation, and supply chain disruptions
Mozilla shuts down Firefox Reality, its web browser launched in 2018 for Oculus and other AR/VR headsets, and directs users to Igalia's upcoming browser Wolvic
A top VR web browser is closing down. Today, Mozilla announced it's shutting down its Firefox Reality browser …
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
Riot Blockchain, the largest Bitcoin mining company in Texas, reduces power consumption by ~98% at its Whinstone facility ahead of an expected winter storm
Crypto miner Riot Blockchain Inc. shut down most of its huge Bitcoin-making operation in Texas to conserve electricity as a wave …
GitHub, which owns the npm JavaScript package manager, enrolls the maintainers of npm's 100 most popular libraries into mandatory two-factor authentication
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record :
Meta, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok sue the German government over rules requiring illegal pieces of content are sent to a federal database, citing privacy risks
including photos of swastikas or posts inciting violence — and user data to a central law enforcement agency. https://www.politico.eu/... Matthias C.Kettemann / @mckettemann : Interesting story on how...
Bengaluru-based Jar, a daily savings app that lets users invest in “digital gold”, raises a $32M Series A led by Tiger Global, sources say at a $200M+ valuation
A seven-month-old fintech app that is helping millions of Indians to begin their investment and saving journeys …
DeepMind details AlphaCode, a new AI coding engine that it says “writes computer programs at a competitive level”
Qualcomm beats with Q1 revenue of $10.7B vs $10.42B est., up 30% YoY, net income of $3.7B, up 47% YoY, and chip segment revenue of $8.8B, up 35% YoY
Bold, which offers a card reader and “pay-by-link” service to SMBs in Colombia, raises a $55M Series B led by Tiger Global, bringing its total funding to $65M
Bold, a technology company working to enable financial access to electronic payments in Colombia …
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
White House forms the Cyber Safety Review Board, loosely modeled on NTSB, to investigate major national cybersecurity failures, starting with the Log4j bug
Dustin Volz / Wall Street Journal : Tweets: @dnvolz , @dalperovitch , @anthony , @ericgeller , @dnvolz , @marcambinder , @williamturton , and @wsjpolitics Tweets: Dustin Volz / @dnvolz : Rob Silvers ...
A look at efforts to reinvigorate Scotland's “Silicon Glen”, led by Edinburgh, which has the largest concentration of academic AI researchers in Europe
Brooke Masters / Financial Times : Tweets: @sam_l_shead , @djohnsonmsp , @leokelion , @edininnovations , and @brookeamasters Tweets: Sam Shead / @sam_l_shead : Edinburgh-headquartered Baillie Gifford...
Germany-based Flip, a chat app for frontline workers, raises $30M led by Notion Ventures and HV Capital and says it has 1M users across 200 organizations
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch :
The European Commission publishes a plan to bolster its influence in creating global tech standards, seeking to challenge the US and China and their companies
Game companies are increasingly using big gameplay data sets to gain insight into what players like, how they play, what they'll likely spend money on, and more
Ben Egliston / Wired : Tweets: @wired and @adam_k_levin Tweets: @wired : All over the world, video games, one of the most widely adopted digital media forms, are installing networks of surveillance a...
France-based Snapshift, a service for managing frontline workers, raises a $45M Series A led by Highland Europe and says it has over 6,000 customers
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch :
Digibee, a low-code service for building and deploying enterprise integration workflows, raises a $25M Series A led by SoftBank Latin America Fund
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch :
Digital fitness startup Future, which connects users with coaches, raises $75M led by SC Holdings and Trustbridge Partners, bringing its total funding to $110M+
Kim Bhasin / Bloomberg : Tweets: @jsmaria , @micah , and @pkedrosky Tweets: Justin Santamaria / @jsmaria : Very proud of our team and excited to welcome our new partners! We are still just getting st...
UK-based Africa-focused payments startup PalmPay raised a $100M Series A in August 2021, after raising a $40M seed in 2019, and says it has 5M users
Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch :
Sweden-based Annotell, which helps assess the performance of autonomous systems' perception, raises a $24M Series A led by Metaplanet and NordicNinja
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch :
Tel Aviv-based Pecan AI, which offers a predictive analytics service for enterprises, raises a $66M Series C, bringing its total funding to $117.5M
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat :
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
Russell Brandom / The Verge :
Pixel Vault, a decentralized entertainment startup focused on an NFT collection of superheroes, raises $100M from 01 Advisors and Velvet Sea Ventures
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch :
London-based Veed, a web-based tool for video creators to create and publish work, raises $35M from Sequoia and says it has 1M users and $7M+ ARR
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch : Thanks: @ingridlunden
Montreal-based Wrk, which automates common enterprise workflows using bots, APIs, and robotic process automation, raises ~$43M across seed, Series A, and debt
Headout, an online travel experiences marketplace, adds a $30M extension led by Glade Brook Capital to its $12M Series B from September 2021
Sneha Shah / The Economic Times :
Shopify's new AI commerce stack
Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI.
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control
Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
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.