Techmeme
October 31, 2021, 11:15 PM

Top News

Patrick McGee / Financial Times:
Estimate: Apple's iOS App Tracking Transparency policy has cost Snap, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube almost $10B in combined ad revenue in H2 2021  —  Forcing apps to ask for permission to track users for advertising purposes leads to big hit for social media platforms
Zack Zwiezen / Kotaku:
After a three-day outage, Roblox says it is back online  —  According to Roblox's status page, all versions of the game have been down since Oct 28 starting at 7 pm EST  —  Roblox, one of the most popular games in the world, has been down for over a day now and while many frustrated players …
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
In 2018, Oculus' Jason Rubin sent a paper to Facebook executives laying the foundation for Meta's ambitions and detailing the need to own the VR market  —  - In 2018, an Oculus executive named Jason Rubin wrote a 50-page document headlined “The Metaverse” that he sent to a Facebook board member and some top execs.
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.
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Facebook's metaverse is designed to solve several problems: an aging userbase, dependence on Google and Apple, regulatory risk, and reputational damage  —  If his new strategy works — a big if — it could help address several of Facebook's biggest problems.
Ethan Zuckerman / The Atlantic:
Wall Street Journal:
Experts say sourcing chips has almost turned into a lottery amid the global chip shortage, as wait times ballooned to 22 weeks in October  —  Nearly a year into the crisis, some customers are finding it is taking months more than expected to get needed parts
Adam Satariano / New York Times:
YouTube's mistaken deletion of a channel belonging to UK news outlet Novara Media draws criticism over the company's power as a content regulator  —  Novara, a London news group, fell victim to YouTube's opaque and sometimes arbitrary enforcement of its rules.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
India-based grocery delivery startup Zepto emerges from stealth with $60M from Glade Brook Capital, Nexus, Y Combinator, and others  —  Two 19-year-old entrepreneurs, who have previously collaborated on a number of projects including a ride-hailing commute app for school kids and last year left Stanford …
Politico:
Industry and government officials say Gaia-X, a project to reduce the EU's cloud dependency on US tech giants, is clogged by infighting and bloated bureaucracy  —  The initiative, meant to boost Europe's cloud services, is failing to fix the problems it was intended to solve.
Daisuke Wakabayashi / New York Times:
Apple's $19 Polishing Cloth has become its most back-ordered new product with shipments delayed until January; source: the company isn't surprised by the demand  —  It's a $19 cloth.  —  OAKLAND, Calif — Apple this month unveiled an array of new gadgets: more powerful MacBook laptop computers …
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 …

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