Techmeme
October 28, 2021, 6:00 PM

Top News

Mark Zuckerberg / About Facebook:
Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook the company is now Meta, to better encompass all of its products  —  We are at the beginning of the next chapter for the internet, and it's the next chapter for our company too.  —  In recent decades, technology has given people the power to connect and express ourselves more naturally.
More: Meta, The Guardian, New York Times, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Insider, CNBC, The Hill, Engadget, Axios, Search Engine Land, The Verge, San Francisco Business Journal, Protocol, SiliconANGLE, International Business Times, AppleInsider, Silicon Valley Business …, PYMNTS.com, The Verge, GamesIndustry.biz, The Verge, Washington Post, Android Police, Facebook Design, The Information, GeekWire, Decrypt, 9to5Mac, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Bloomberg, BBC, BuzzFeed News, Gizmodo, NPR, CNET, AppleInsider, TNW, UploadVR, XDA Developers, Quartz, Neowin, CNBC, Connect The Watts, Android Headlines, Insider, Tubefilter, Pocketnow, Social Media Today, GameRevolution, Fast Company, afrotech.com, Gizchina, Patently Apple, NBC Bay Area, Mashable, Deadline, iDownloadBlog.com, Pocket-lint, PC Gamer, Associated Press, Variety, Financial Times, and The Wrap
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Interview with Mark Zuckerberg on rebranding the company to Meta to avoid the awkwardness of sharing the name of its main app, building the metaverse, and more  —  The company wants to move past the ‘confusion and awkwardness’ of sharing a name with its main app
Andrew Bosworth:
Andrew Bosworth says Meta will replace the Oculus brand starting in early 2022, changing Oculus Quest to Meta Quest and Oculus App to Meta Quest App  —  Well the cat's (officially) out of the bag: Our company is now Meta to better reflect who we are and our ambitions to help build the metaverse.
YouTube:
Video of Facebook Connect 2021, where VR updates, Project Cambria, and a new Meta brand name were announced  —  Tune in at 10:00am PT / 1:00pm ET on Thurs.  Oct. 28 when Facebook holds its annual Facebook Connect.  The company is expected to announce Oculus updates and o...
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Facebook unveils Horizon Home social VR spaces, Messenger VR calls, fitness VR, Quest for Business, including Work Accounts support on Quest 2, and more  —  Join gaming leaders online at GamesBeat Summit Next this upcoming November 9-10.  Learn more about what comes next.
Apple:
Apple misses with Q4 revenue of $83.4B, up 29% YoY, vs $84.85B est., iPhone revenue of $38.87B, up 47% YoY, services revenue of $18.3B, up 25.6%; stock down 5%+  —  New September quarter record with revenue up 29 percent  —  Services and Mac revenue reach new all-time highs
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Apple reports Q4 Mac revenue of $9.18B, up 1.6% YoY, and iPad revenue of $8.25B, up 21.4% YoY, and says supply chain issues cost the company ~$6B in the quarter  —  - Apple revenue fell short of Wall Street expectations in its fiscal fourth quarter on Thursday, which Apple CEO Tim Cook attributed …
About Amazon:
Amazon misses with Q3 revenue of $110.8B, up 15% YoY, vs $111.6B est., net income of $3.2B, down from $6.3B YoY, AWS net sales of $16.1B, up 39%; stock down 4%+  —  SEATTLE—(BUSINESS WIRE)— Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced financial results for its third quarter ended September 30, 2021.
Zachary Basu / Axios:
Microsoft launches a campaign to help fill 250,000 cybersecurity jobs in the US by 2025, offering scholarships and free curriculum for community colleges  —  Microsoft announced Thursday that it's launching a national campaign to help fill 250,000 cybersecurity jobs in the U.S. by 2025 …
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Apple support document says 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro users can turn on “scale to fit below built-in camera” to avoid notch app compatibility issues  —  Apple today shared a new support document that explains how users can ensure that an app's menu bar items do not appear hidden behind …
Reuters:
Meme-based coin Shiba Inu rose about 160% this week, briefly surpassing dogecoin to become the eighth biggest cryptocurrency by market cap  —  Dogecoin, watch out!  —  Meme-based cryptocurrency Shiba Inu soared more than 45% over the last 24 hours, muscling its way into the top 10 largest digital tokens by market capitalization.
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Google says it will roll out e2e encrypted phone calls on Google Fi over the coming weeks  —  But only for calls between two Android phones on Fi  —  In the coming weeks, Google is rolling out end-to-end encrypted phone calls on its Google Fi MVNO, the search giant announced today.
Patience Haggin / Wall Street Journal:
Washington Post:
NYU research suggests Twitter's algorithms promote conservative politicians because they are more likely to be “ratioed”, which Twitter may count as engagement  —  Our research suggests conservative politicians are ‘ratioed’ more often.  That may explain why they're in your timeline.
Reuters:
Shopify reports Q3 revenue of $1.12B, up 46% YoY, gross merchandise volume of $41.8B, up 35% YoY, and says cumulative GMV reached $400B  —  Canada's Shopify Inc's (SHOP.TO) third-quarter revenue fell short of Wall Street estimates, hurt by stiff competition as rivals invest more money to develop their e-commerce platforms.
More: BetaKit and Shopify
Berber Jin / The Information:
UnitedMasters, a music distribution app for independent musicians, raises a $50M Series C led by a16z at a $550M valuation  —  UnitedMasters, a music distribution app for independent musicians, has raised $50 million in a round led by venture firm Andreessen Horowitz at a $550 million valuation, including the new investment.
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Anomalo, which uses AI to find issues in data sets, raises a $33M Series A led by NVP, formally launches, and says it already has $1M+ in revenue  —  As companies gather ever-growing sets of data, finding issues with that data that could impact the viability of a machine learning model becomes increasingly important.

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