Apple gave select engineers rare stock bonuses worth $50K-$180K to prevent defections to Meta.
Meta poached about 100 engineers from Apple over the past few months. Apple informed some engineers in silicon design, hardware, and select software and operations groups of restricted stock units bonuses, that will vest over 4 years (as an incentive to stay at the company). Apple sometimes awards additional cash bonuses to employees, but the size of the latest stock grants were atypical and surprisingly timed, the people said. They were given to about 10% to 20% of engineers in applicable divisions. Link

Survey of US internet users: 72% distrust Facebook, 63% TikTok, 60% Instagram, 53% WhatsApp, and 53% YouTube.
According to a Washington Post-Schar School poll, 72% of Internet users trust Facebook "not much" or "not at all" to responsibly handle their personal information and data on their Internet activity. About 6 in 10 distrust TikTok and Instagram, while slight majorities distrust WhatsApp and YouTube. 53% trust Amazon, 48% Google, and 44% Apple. Only 10% say Facebook has a positive impact on society, while 56% say it has a negative impact and 33% say its impact is neither positive nor negative. Link

Photo credit: The Washington Post

Airline CEOs seek 5G rollout delay due to interference with key cockpit systems
AT&T and Verizon are planned to rollout new C-band 5G wireless services in large cities on Jan. 5, but aviation officials have warned that it could result in massive flight delays during storms and cloudy weather. Airline execs say C-band 5G signals could interfere with the cockpit systems that are used to track a plane's altitude and help with landings in bad weather. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said that the 5G rollout could delay, divert, or cancel ~4% of daily flights. The FAA issued an order outlining possible restrictions for systems used for landing in bad weather due to potential 5G interference. Link

TikTok.com was the most popular domain globally between August and December 2021, after passing Google.
Tiktok, which was 7th place last year, passed Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon this year.
Here are the top 10 most popular domains (late) 2021:
1 TikTok.com
2 Google.com
3 Facebook.com
4 Microsoft.com
5 Apple.com
6 Amazon.com
7 Netflix.com
8 YouTube.com
9 Twitter.com
10 WhatsApp.com

And (late) 2020's top 10 most popular domains:
1 Google.com
2 Facebook.com
3 Microsoft.com
4 Apple.com
5 Netflix.com
6 Amazon.com
7 TikTok.com
8 YouTube.com
9 Instagram.com
10 Twitter.com

There are more interesting stats in the link.

Oracle acquires electronic medical records company Cerner for $28.3B in its biggest acquisition ever.
It's an all cash deal for $95 per share. Cerner creates software for medical centers to store and process data. Oracle shares were down after the companies announced the deal. Oracle's market cap is $264B. Link

TikTok is opening a chain of 300 restaurants, called TikTok Kitchens, that will deliver some of its most viral food trends.
TikTok will partner with Virtual Dining Concepts and GrubHub to launch delivery-only "TikTok Kitchens" across the US. They'll open 300 in March 2022 and plan on opening over 1,000 by the end of next year. The restaurants will sell products that went viral on TikTok, including baked feta pasta, smash burger and pasta chips. Virtual Dining Concepts partnered with YouTube Star MrBeast to launch MrBeast Burger last year. MrBeast Burger has 1,500 stores in the US, UK, and Canada. Link

Photo credit: Virtual Dining Concepts

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri confirmed that they're actively exploring integrating NFTs into Instagram.
"We're definitely actively exploring NFTs and how we can make them more accessible to a wider audience" Instagram's CEO said, but there's "nothing to announce yet". App developer Alessandro Paluzzi first shared details of Instagram's NFT plans in July, sharing screenshots on Twitter. Instagram posts may come with a "collectible" label, to mark NFTs held by a user within a dedicated section. Paluzzi also shared a feature that shows users could be allowed to make bids for NFTs directly on Instagram, and he noted that Instagram is likely to support Coinbase and MetaMask crypto wallets, as well as Facebook's Novi wallet. Link

Illustration by RN in TECH

JPMorgan Chase will pay $125M fine to the SEC and $75M to the CFTC because employees use WhatsApp to conduct business.
Under federal law, banking firms must keep detailed records of official business between brokers and clients so that regulators can inspect the transactions. The SEC said the practice of using third-party communication apps was widespread at JPMorgan Chase. "Since at least July 2015, JPMorgan employees, including those at senior levels, communicated both internally and externally on unapproved channels, including via personal text messages and WhatsApp messages", the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said in a statement. Link

US bans investing in 8 Chinese companies, including DJI, for "surveillance and tracking" of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China.
Aside from drone maker DJI, the other companies are image-recognition firm Megvii, facial recognition company CloudWalk, AI company Yitu, supercomputer manufacturer Dawning, cyber security specialist Xiamen Meiya Pico, and cloud computing companies NetPosa and Leon. DJI's drones will remain for sale in the US. DJI is accused of providing surveillance drones to authorities that operate mass detention camps in Xinjiang, where more than one million Uyghurs are being held in "re-education centers" that human rights groups say are akin to concentration camps. Link

Apple quietly removed all mentions of CSAM scanning on its Child Safety webpage.
The removal suggests its controversial plan to detect child sexual abuse images on iPhones and iPads may change (following significant criticism of its methods). However, an Apple spokesperson claims that even though the CSAM detection is no longer mentioned on its website, plans for CSAM detection have not changed since September, which means CSAM detection is still coming in the future. Link

Oppo announces Air Glass, 30g "assisted reality" wearable device.
The AR device, that'll go on sale early next year, projects 2D info into your field of view rather than overlaying 3D objects onto the real world (yes, sort of like Google Glass). They claim it lasts for 3 hours of active usage and 40 hours on standby. It can be operated via touch, voice, hand tracking, and head tracking, as well as through a Smart Glass app on a smartphone running Oppo’s ColorOS 11 or above. It'll be available first in China. Link

Nike has acquired virtual sneakers and NFT collectibles studio RTFKT.
RTFKT develops virtual sneakers and other digital collectible NFTs. The terms of the deal weren't disclosed. They collaborated with artist FEWOCiOUS in February to sell real sneakers paired with virtual ones and sold 600 pairs/NFTs in just six minutes, netting over $3.1M. Link

Photo credit: RTFKT

Elon Musk said Tesla will accept Dogecoin for its merchandise, causing the coin's price to rise 33%.
In a tweet, Musk said Tesla will make some of its merch buyable with Doge and "see how it goes". Musk says that Doge is "better suited for transactions" than Bitcoin. Link

Apple releases Tracker Detect, an Android app that scans for AirTags and Find My items that may be tracking users without their knowledge.
Apple AirTags have built-in tracking warnings for people who have iPhones, now a similar functionality is available for Android users. So "If you think someone is using AirTag or another device to track your location" the app says, "you can scan to try to find it". Link

Meta acquired the worldwide trademark assets of regional bank Meta Financial Group for $60M through a company called Beige Key.
Meta Financial, a regional US bank, had said in regulatory filings that a Delaware company called Beige Key LLC agreed to acquire the worldwide rights to its company names for $60M in cash. Facebook/Meta now officially revealed that "Beige Key is affiliated with us and we have acquired these trademark assets". Meta Financial's shares were trading 1.5% lower, giving it a market cap of $1.74B. Link

WhatsApp testing Meta's Novi digital wallet in the US, letting users send and receive USDP within a chat.
The Novi pilot is available to a limited number of people in the US using WhatsApp for Android and iOS letting them securely send and receive money with no fees, instantly right within WhatsApp chat. The payments are made using USDP (Pax Dollars), a stablecoin that's backed by the US dollar issued by Paxos (1 USDP is equivalent to 1 USD). People won't be buying cryptocurrency when they use it, it's simply money transfers that use stablecoin as an instrument. Link

Instagram plans on bringing back the chronological feed in 2022.
They got rid of it in 2016 in favor of the controversial engagement-based ranking feed. Speaking to lawmakers at a Senate hearing, Adam Mosseri said the company has been working on "a version" of a chronological feed for months. Instagram also confirmed they'll also add a "favorites" feed, which will surface posts from designated friends higher in the feed. Both feeds will be optional. Mosseri has consistently defended its algorithmic feed despite persistent complaints from users, saying that a chronological feed made it "impossible for most people to see everything, let alone all the posts they cared about". Link

Appeals court grants a stay in the Epic v. Apple ruling, letting Apple keep its IAP system as the sole source of iOS in-app payments.
Apple got the stay they wanted in the case, which pauses one of the most consequential parts of the Epic v. Apple ruling. It doesn't reverse the earlier ruling but puts enforcement on hold until the appeals court can fully hear the case, a process that will likely take months. It doesn't extend the second part of the injunction, Apple still needs to allow developers to tell users they can pay outside an app. Link

Apple is already developing the second-generation of its upcoming AR/VR headset.
According to trusted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the second version is due out in 2024 and is expected to be lighter, have a faster processor, new battery, and updated design (the first version is due out in the second half of 2022 and will weigh around 300 to 400g). Apple hasn't announced the headset yet but is estimated to have about 1,000 engineers working on it. Kuo expects Apple to sell about 2.5-3.5M units of the first-generation headset in 2023. Second-generation unit estimates are around 10M units in 2024. Link

Concept credit: Antonio De Rosa

Ubisoft is the first major gaming company that will add NFT items into its games.
It will start with the game Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint and will run on Tezos, a proof-of-stake blockchain. Ubisoft is naming their NFTs as Digits and say they are "playable, in-game, unique digital collectables, released in limited edition" (each have a serial number). Here's their announcement trailer. It's not really clear what the benefit is of having them as NFTs, they don't add anything to the experience that wasn't available with regular in-app purchases. Much of their announcement highlights the difference in environmental impact between the proof-of-stake Tezos blockchain and the energy-intensive Bitcoin. Link

Photo credit: Ubisoft

Better.com's CEO laid off 900 employees over Zoom last week and accused them of working only two hours a day.
The digital mortgage company is reportedly valued at $7B and just received a $750M cash infusion a few days before. On the Zoom call Vishal Garg, Better.com's CEO, accused hundreds of employees of stealing by working only two hours a day. 9% of employees were laid off. Only those being laid off were invited to the Zoom call. Link

Photo credit: Better.com

Intel will spin out its autonomous and assisted driving business Mobileye as a public company in 2022.
Mobileye's IPO valuation is estimated to be over $50B. Intel acquired the Israeli company for $15.3B in 2017. Mobileye's revenues have tripled since acquired, they generated $326M in revenue during the third quarter, up 39% YOY. Intel will maintain majority ownership. Mobileye has launched self-driving vehicle testing programs and plans to introduce a robotaxi service in partnership with Sixt in Germany next year. Link

Photo credit: Mobileye

Life360, a popular family safety app with 33M users, has been selling users' precise location since 2016.
The company that just bought Tile, has been marketed as a great way for parents to track their children's movements using their cellphones, is a major source of raw location data for a multibillion-dollar industry that buys, packages, and sells people's movements. Life360 CEO and founder Chris Hulls says that selling data allows them to keep the app free. Last year the company reported $16M of revenue from data sales. Among the buyers are companies like X-Mode, SafeGraph, and Cuebiq that are known location data companies that supply data and insights gleaned from that data to other industry players, as well as customers like hedge funds or firms that deal in targeted advertising. Link

Crypto exchange BitMart confirms hack, resulting in the loss of $150M in crypto.
Founder and CEO Sheldon Xia confirmed that their Ethereum and Binance-Smart-Chain hot wallets were breached and that they haven't concluded yet what method was used. Link

Google planning to launch its own smartwatch in 2022.
Codenamed "Rohan", it's being worked on by Google's Pixel hardware group separately from Fitbit, which Google bought for $2.1B this year. Unlike the Apple Watch, the smartwatch is round and has no physical bezel, according to employees who have seen it. Like Apple's device, it will capture health and fitness metrics. The device is expected to cost more than a Fitbit and compete directly with the Apple Watch. In the past, Google created software for smartwatches built by partners such as Samsung, but has not made a device of its own. Link

3D render credit: Rachit Tank

TikTok adds monetization tools for creators, including tips and video gifts, powered by Stripe.
Tiktok wants to expand the ability of creators to earn money, up till now they could accept virtual gifts from fans during TikTok live videos, now creators will be able to get tips and video gifts on their regular videos. Tiktok launched the "Creator Next" portal, that has all of TikTok's monetization opportunities in one place. It's starting in the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain (Canada and Australia coming soon). Creators will receive 100% of the tips, minus a Stripe small processing fee, but the company itself isn't taking a slice of that revenue (this way, the payments can also avoid the App Store's in-app purchase fees). Link

Photo credit: Eyestetix Studio

Square announced that it will change its name to Block, effective Dec. 10.
The move comes as Square expands beyond its original credit card-reader business, with a focus on new technologies such as blockchain. Block will still trade under the ticker SQ on the New York Stock Exchange. Last week Square released the white paper for the decentralized bitcoin exchange tbDEX protocol. Link

Twitter banning users from sharing photos or videos of a private individual without their permission.
The company notes that tweeting such images can violate someone's privacy and potentially lead to harm against them. If someone reports a photo or video that violates the policy, Twitter will remove the media and take action. There are some exceptions to the policy. It doesn't cover private media of public figures or others if a photo or video "are shared in the public interest or add value to public discourse". So if it's "newsworthy", Twitter may allow it and will consider factors such as whether the images are available elsewhere, like on TV or in newspapers. Link

Photo credit: Jeremy Bezanger

Salesforce promotes Bret Taylor to Vice Chair of the Board and co-CEO alongside Marc Benioff.
Hot off the news of Bret becoming the chairman of Twitter's board, Salesforce announced that he's being promoted internally too, effective immediately. He's been rising the ranks at Salesforce since 2016 when Salesforce acquired his productivity software start-up Quip for $750M. His previous roles there were president, COO, and chief product officer. Before that Bret helped create Google Maps, founded and sold FriendFeed (where the like concept was invented!) to Facebook, and spent 3 years as Facebook's CTO. Link

Photo credit: Salesforce