News

Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer UK sanctions Baikal Electronics and MCST, Russia’s most important chipmakers, denying them access to the ARM architecture  —  The UK government added 63 Russian entities to its sanction list on Wednesday.  Among them are Baikal Electronics and MCST (Moscow Center of SPARC Technologies), the two most important chip makers in Russia….

Adding crypto to IndiaStack, a set of national APIs for payments and identity, could allow India to build an OSS stack for domestic and foreign transactions  —  Use the digital rupee to facilitate domestic commerce and crypto protocols to attract international investment. Source

Interview with Atari CEO Fred Chesnais on leveraging the Atari brand, including through hotels and virtual clothing, shipping the VCS console, more  —  Under CEO Fred Chesnais, Atari is a company with just 28 employees.  That’s pretty small for the oldest brand in video games. Source

A look at surveillance apps Shadowtrack and SmartLink, which are used by states and ICE as parole apps replacing GPS ankle bracelets  —  Is smartphone tracking a less intrusive reward for good behaviour or just a way to enrich the incarceration industry?  —  n 2018, William Frederick Keck. Source

Profile of Group-IB CEO Ilya Sachkov, who is charged with treason in Russia, sources say for allegedly giving the US info about Fancy Bear’s 2016 operation  —  Ilya Sachkov, who’s been charged with treason in Russia, is alleged to have given the U.S. information about the “Fancy Bear” Source

People are sending news about Ukraine to Russians using a website that randomly selects from a list of ~20M phone numbers and ~140M email addresses in Russia  —  Website developed by hackers is new initiative in West’s battle to counter Russia’s propaganda campaign. Source

NYC-based Level, which helps companies offer customized employee benefits plans and touts the ability to process claims in four hours, raises $27M Series A  —  Level, a startup that aims to give companies a more flexible way to offer benefits to employees, has raised $27 million in a Series. Source

Profile of Thomas Templeton, an Apple hardware veteran building a bitcoin wallet for Square, and how he photographs retail countertops to inform product design  —  The Square executive leading Jack Dorsey’s big plan for a bitcoin wallet is a veteran hardware technologist with a quirky hobby: taking pictures of countertops. Source

In a letter to Tim Cook, Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Mike Lee “strongly urge” Apple to reconsider refusal to provide a witness for upcoming hearing on app stores  —  ‘We strongly urge Apple to reconsider its position,’ the senators said  —  Senate Judiciary Committee leaders. Source

Dealogic: Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet announced more acquisitions in 2021 than in any other year in the past decade Source