Techmeme
October 13, 2021, 6:45 PM

Top News

Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Apple is exploring adding health-related features to AirPods, including for enhancing hearing, reading body temperature, and monitoring posture  —  Earbuds could be offered as hearing aids and include an in-ear thermometer and posture warnings  —  Apple Inc. is studying ways …
Reuters:
Internal documents show Amazon's Indian arm ran a systematic campaign to create knockoff goods and boost them in search, starting in 2016  —  A trove of internal Amazon documents reveals how the e-commerce giant ran a systematic campaign of creating knockoff goods and manipulating search results …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Activision announces the Ricochet anti-cheating system for Call of Duty: Warzone, which uses a PC kernel-level driver and ML to examine player behavior  —  Activision is cracking down on Call of Duty cheaters  —  Activision and Raven Software are finally cracking down on cheating in Call of Duty: Warzone.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Facebook says it now counts activists and journalists as “involuntary” public figures to help protect them and will remove sexual content targeting celebrities  —  Facebook said it will remove “severe sexualizing content” targeting public figures — including celebrities …
Eleanor Olcott / Financial Times:
Research: China's bitcoin hashrate share fell from 44% to 0% between May and July, as the US rose from 17% in April to 35% in August and Kazakhstan rose to 18%  —  Crackdown on digital currencies knocks country's share of crypto production to zero  —  The US overtook China as the world's biggest source …
Ryan Mac / New York Times:
Facebook sets some internal message boards to private, including discussions on platform safety and election integrity, limiting which employees have access  —  Facebook told employees on Tuesday that it was making some of its internal online discussion groups private, in an effort to minimize leaks.
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Apple Watch Series 7 review: bigger display, dust resistance, and multiple timers, but only one day battery life and no third-party watch faces or Qi charging  —  A bigger screen and faster charging are nice, but not reasons to upgrade  —  The most important questions to ask …
Nikkei Asia:
Sources: TSMC and Sony are planning a semiconductor factory in Japan, opening in 2024 and costing ~$7B, half of which will come from the Japanese government  —  Toyota group parts maker Denso considers signing up  —  TOKYO — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world's largest contract chipmaker …
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
Microsoft agrees to commission an independent human rights review of its law enforcement and government contracts, in response to a shareholder proposal  —  After shareholder proposal, Microsoft to commission independent report on company's contracts.  —  Microsoft Corp. …
Will Oremus / Washington Post:
Regulating social media algorithms, an increasingly appealing idea among US lawmakers, is very hard to get right without running afoul of the First Amendment  —  Whistleblower Frances Haugen says the software that decides what we see in our social feeds is hurting us all.  But reforming it won't be easy.
Wall Street Journal:
Analysis: competitors are gaining on Huawei and Apple in the 5G equipment and handset markets; US is catching up fast to China in 5G subscriptions per capita  —  The competition among equipment makers, countries and cellphone companies is heated.  Here are the leaders in each of those races.
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Matik, which offers businesses data-driven and automated tools for making personalized PowerPoint presentations for customers, raises $20M Series A led by a16z  —  Matik, which has created automated data-driven software for customizing Google Slides or PowerPoint presentations …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple says a virtual event, titled “Unleashed”, will be held on October 18 at 10am PT, where new MacBook Pros with M1X are expected  —  Apple today announced that it will be holding a special event on Monday, October 18 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple will likely cut its projected iPhone 13 production targets for 2021 by 10M units, due to shortage of Broadcom and Texas Instruments parts  —  Apple Inc. is likely to slash its projected iPhone 13 production targets for 2021 by as many as 10 million units because of prolonged chip shortages …
Martin Matishak / The Record:
US to host a two-day ransomware virtual event from Wed. with 30 countries, excluding Russia and China; source says Russia wasn't invited “for a host of reasons”  —  The Biden administration did not invite Russia to participate in the first meeting of a global effort to combat cybercrime …

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