Techmeme
October 30, 2021, 11:45 AM

Top News

Gene Park / Washington Post:
Meta is just playing catch-up as Roblox, Steam VR, VRChat, and other platforms have already developed metaverse-like experiences  —  In addition to announcing Facebook's rebranding to Meta on Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg delivered a number of lofty promises about the metaverse and its features.
Ethan Zuckerman / The Atlantic:
Meta's promised metaverse is going to be boring and is meant to distract us from the world that Facebook helped break  —  In a booth at Ted's Fish Fry, in Troy, New York, my friend Daniel Beck and I sketched out our plans for the metaverse.  It was November 1994, just as the graphical web …
Mark Zuckerberg / About Facebook:
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Meta acquires Within, the company behind VR fitness game Supernatural; Within will continue working on the game and help Meta improve future VR hardware  —  The company already owns Beat Saber  —  Meta has announced that the studio behind VR workout game Supernatural will be joining the company …
The Verge:
Apple MacBook Pro 14- and 16-inch review: incredible performance with very long battery life and beautiful displays but expensive with absurd RAM pricing  —  Apple's new pro laptops right the wrongs of the past half decade  —  Let's start simply: the new MacBook Pros with M1 Pro and M1 Max chips …
Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal:
Damon Beres / Wired:
Advocates for the blind say DMCA exemptions to break ebook DRM for accessibility should be permanent, rather than having to be renewed every three years  —  Advocates will once again be granted a DMCA exception to make accessible versions of texts.  They argue that it's far past time to make it permanent.
Foreign Affairs:
How the rhetoric surrounding techno-globalism has shifted, from countries advocating for a free, open internet to imposing limits to protect national interests  —  Two key words were missing from the statements that followed the inaugural in-person summit in September of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue …
Delia Cai / Vanity Fair:
Q&A with EIC Nilay Patel on The Verge's 10th anniversary, tech media's advance from early breathless gadget reviews, subject-source relationships, and more  —  After a decade covering the Zucks, Googles, and Ubers of the scene, the Verge editor in chief reflects on tech's troublesome relationship with the rest of the world.
Samantha Subin / CNBC:
Microsoft had a nearly $2.49T market cap at close on Friday, passing Apple's $2.46T market cap to become the world's most valuable public company  —  - Microsoft passed Apple in market cap on Friday, making it the world's most valuable public company.  — The move comes after Apple …
Joanna Glasner / Crunchbase News:
Analysis: Florida startups have raised about $1.3B in Series A and Series B funding so far in 2021, which is more than quadruple the $277M raised in all of 2020  —  The hype around South Florida as an up-and-coming startup hub isn't just hype.  Seed- and early-stage investment …
Liya Su / DealStreetAsia:
Chinese smart home devices maker Aqara raises a $155M Series C from investors including state-backed Shenzhen Capital and China Telecom  —  Chinese smart home devices maker Aqara, which is owned by Xiaomi-backed Lumi United Technology, has raked in an aggregate of 1 billion yuan ($155 million) in its Series C round of financing.
Nikkei Asia:
Chinese ride-sharing startup T3 raises a $1.2B Series A led by state-backed conglomerate CITIC Group, as rival Didi faces a regulatory crackdown  —  2-year-old startup joins race to snag market share from embattled company  —  TOKYO/HONG KONG — Chinese ride-hailing company T3 Chuxing …

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Earlier Picks

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
Apple: