Techmeme
October 4, 2021, 9:25 PM

Top News

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Facebook's services are returning online after suffering a global outage for over six hours  —  Update: 5:55 p.m. ET: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger are slowly but surely coming back up after more than 6 hours of being down.  Your mileage may vary for now, but the services are in the process of coming back to life.
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Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook
Tom Strickx / The Cloudflare Blog:
Cloudflare says prior to Facebook's outage, Facebook issued several BGP updates, causing DNS resolution errors that knocked Facebook off the web  —  “Facebook can't be down, can it?”, we thought, for a second.  —  Today at 1651 UTC, we opened an internal incident entitled …
New York Times:
Facebook employees and an internal memo say that, several hours into the incident, Facebook's security experts were still trying to identify the root issue  —  When apps used by billions of people worldwide blinked out, lives were disrupted, businesses were cut off from customers …
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
As WSJ's Facebook Files suggest, Facebook seems to be in a slow, steady decline, evidenced by frenetic pivots, executive paranoia, and talent attrition  —  A trove of leaked documents, published by The Wall Street Journal, hints at a company whose best days are behind it.
Scott Pelley / CBS News:
Jeff Horwitz / Wall Street Journal:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Review of the now-released Windows 11: improved modern UI and sounds, but many promised features like Android apps are missing and new taskbar is a step back  —  Microsoft's new OS is a work in progress  —  Microsoft wants Windows 11 to feel familiar.  While the company has attempted drastic changes …
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
Filing: Syniverse, which routes texts for AT&T, Verizon, and others, says hackers had access to its databases and customer logins for 5 years; logins were reset  —  Syniverse handles billions of text messages a year, and hackers had unauthorized access to its system for years.
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Apple starts letting users report scammy apps from their App Store listings through its Report a Problem button  —  The ‘Report a Problem’ button is back  —  One month ago, we laid out a list of eight obvious things Apple could do to prove it puts App Store users ahead of profits.
Cameron Faulkner / The Verge:
Android 12 review: big design improvements led by Material You, but the new widgets will need dev support to shine; Pixel phones get the update in a few weeks  —  There are a just a few noteworthy features in this design-focused update  —  The most exciting thing about a big Android update …
Harrison Weber / dot.LA:
In a blow to online streaming services, over 50,000 backstage movie and TV workers vote to authorize a strike after their union's demands were not met  —  Ratcheting up the stakes in an already tense labor battle, members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) …
Kim Lyons / The Verge:
Amazon says Prime members can send gifts with a phone number or email address, no physical address required, rolling out to mobile users in the continental US  —  There's currently no way to opt out of the new feature  —  Amazon is launching a new gifting feature today that will allow subscribers …
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Stable, a risk management platform to help businesses limit their exposure to potential volatility in commodity prices, raises $46.5M Series A led by Greycroft  —  Stable, an insurtech aiming to help minimize a businesses' risk due to volatile commodity prices, today announced …

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