Techmeme
October 21, 2021, 12:55 PM

Top News

Oversight Board:
Facebook's Oversight Board releases a report demanding more transparency, including for its “cross-check” system, and says 524K appeals have been submitted  —  Over the last several weeks, media reporting has drawn renewed attention to the seemingly inconsistent …
ABC News:
Trump announces the Trump Media & Technology Group and TRUTH Social, a social network coming in Nov. to “stand up” to Big Tech, in the App Store for preorder  —  The former president has been banned from several platforms.  —  Silenced by many major platforms …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple product orders, including iPad mini, MacBook Pro, and $19 cleaning cloth, are delayed into November and December due to chip shortages and other issues  —  - Store employees say supply situation is the bleakest in years  — Latest iPhones, iPads, Macs and watches all see long delays
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Sources: Mark Zuckerberg has not settled on a new name for Facebook, which could be announced as early as Monday  —  See you Monday!  —  Facebook is changing its name.  Perhaps you heard.  The news was broken by Alex Heath of The Verge on Tuesday night, and I've since confirmed it with sources of my own.
Sam Rutherford / Gizmodo:
Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming service adds a $100/month tier with RTX 3080 GPU, hosted inside a bespoke SuperPod server, offering 1440p games at 120fps  —  Thanks to new custom servers equipped with RTX 3080 GPUs, GeForce Now will support game streaming at up to 1440p at 120fps—but it'll cost you.
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Sam Altman's Worldcoin launches its cryptocurrency that it gives in exchange for users' eye scans, says it has 100K users globally and is valued at $1B  —  - Tech millionaire Sam Altman's new start-up Worldcoin uses orb-shaped devices to scan people's eyes in exchange for free cryptocurrency.
More: VentureBeat, TechCrunch, and Decrypt
Tweets: @sama, @sama, and @ryan_browne_
Wall Street Journal:
US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announces a broad investigation into consumer data practices at Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Google, and others  —  Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is expected to seek information on how those firms and others use consumers' financial information
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google lowers Play Store subscription fees to 15% and fees for ebooks and on-demand music streaming services to “as low as 10%”  —  Subscription fees are lowered to 15 percent, and music streaming services ‘as low as 10%’  —  As regulatory pressure on the Play Store for Android increases …
Danny Nelson / CoinDesk:
Bahamas-based crypto exchange FTX raises a $420.69M Series B-1 at a $25B valuation from 69 investors, including BlackRock and Tiger Global  —  FTX has memed itself into another massive funding round.  —  Sam Bankman-Fried's Bahamas-based crypto exchange said Wednesday it had raised $420,690,000 in a Series B-1 funding round.
Ben Sisario / New York Times:
PleasrDAO, a group of digital asset collectors, says it created an NFT that will stand as an ownership deed for Wu-Tang Clan's one-of-a-kind physical album  —  The government sold “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” to satisfy a judgment against its first owner, Martin Shkreli.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Microsoft Surface Duo 2 review: futuristic design, excellent multitasking, and useful pen support, but buggy, lousy camera, expensive, and awkward form factor  —  Microsoft's second attempt at a folding phone rights a lot of the original's wrongs, but doesn't fix everything
MK Manoylov / The Block:
Mojito, which lets clients like Sotheby's sell NFTs from their own storefronts or websites, raises $20M at a $100M valuation  —  Mojito, the startup supporting Sotheby's Metaverse, announced Thursday that it raised $20 million in its first funding round, bringing its total valuation to $100 million.
More: Decrypt, CoinDesk, and Forbes
Bloomberg:
Sources: Intel's talks with chip designer SiFive ended without a deal and the startup instead plans to pursue outside investment and an IPO  —  - Arm rival SiFive plans to grow headcount, eyes eventual IPO  — Intel had sought SiFive's underlying RISC-V chip technology
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon rolls out Local Selling, an in-store pickup option for items from local businesses in the US  —  - Amazon said Thursday it will let third-party sellers offer in-store pickup to shoppers who live near the merchant's brick-and-mortar stores.  — In-store pickup, or click-and-collect ordering …
More: Business WireTweets: @rustybrick
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Internal email: Apple will test unvaccinated corporate staff each time they enter offices starting Nov. 1, and asks US staff to report vaccine status by Oct. 24  —  - The company is still stopping short of requiring the shots  — Unvaccinated retail staff will be asked to test twice a week

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Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Emily Birnbaum / Politico:
Aisha Counts / Protocol: