Techmeme
November 17, 2021, 2:05 PM

Top News

Ian Sherr / CNET:
Apple announces Self Service Repair, a program starting next year that will publish repair manuals, let customers buy parts and tools, and more  —  The tech giant says it will publish repair manuals and allow everyday customers to buy the same parts and tools certified technicians and repair shops use.
Bloomberg:
Amazon tells UK customers it won't accept Visa credit cards issued in the UK from January 19, 2022, citing high transaction fees  —  - Customers told the change will come into effect in Jan. 2022  — Amazon cites high fees charged by Visa as reason for change
Sam Dean / Los Angeles Times:
LA's iconic Staples Center to be renamed as Crypto.com Arena, sources say in a deal worth $700M+ for 20 years  —  Staples Center is getting a new name for Christmas: Crypto.com Arena.  —  The downtown Los Angeles venue — home of the Lakers, Clippers, Kings and Sparks …
Shannon Liao / Washington Post:
A group of shareholders owning less than 1% of Activision Blizzard calls for CEO Bobby Kotick and two of its longest serving board members to resign  —  A day after Activision Blizzard employees staged a walkout and called for the resignation of CEO Bobby Kotick and several other executives …
Shannon Liao / Washington Post:
Over 100 Activision Blizzard employees staged a walkout on Tuesday, the second in four months, demanding CEO Bobby Kotick step down, after a WSJ report  —  This story has been updated from a previous version.  —  IRVINE, Calif. — Employees at beleaguered video game company Activision Blizzard walked …
Wall Street Journal:
Gene Maddaus / Variety:
Miramax sues Quentin Tarantino over copyright infringement for selling NFTs based on Pulp Fiction screenplay excerpts; Miramax says it owns screenplay rights  —  Miramax filed a lawsuit on Tuesday accusing Quentin Tarantino of copyright infringement by selling NFTs based on the screenplay for “Pulp Fiction.”
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify expands Podcast Subscriptions globally and now includes 20 price points from $0.50 to $150 and a way for creators to download subscribers' contact info  —  Just a few months after launching support for podcast subscriptions to U.S. creators, Spotify today is making the service available to creators in global markets.
Reuters:
Profile of Vignesh Sundaresan, aka MetaKovan, who bought the $69M Beeple NFT, as customers and investors in his companies say they lost millions of dollars  —  Vignesh Sundaresan, aka MetaKovan, has amassed a digital art collection worth tens of millions of dollars.  His path to riches was sometimes rocky.
Bloomberg:
Source: BlockFi faces SEC scrutiny for offering high interest rates for lending out crypto; Texas, New Jersey, and others are already investigating BlockFi  —  - U.S. regulator examining whether lending product is a security  — Fast-growing firm already responding to state-level inquires
More: Decrypt
Peter Guest / Rest of World:
Singapore, which is often portrayed as an aspiring techno-utopia, is edging closer to a surveillance state amid a nationwide move toward constant vigilance  —  In the “smart nation,” robot dogs enforce social distancing and an app can claim to neutralize racism.  The reality is very different.
Nina Bambysheva / Forbes:
Nym Technologies, which provides network-level privacy through its blockchain-based “mixnet”, raises a $13M Series A led by a16z at a $270M valuation  —  I cover cryptocurrencies and other applications of blockchain  —  Working to make the internet more private …
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Netflix expands its Top 10 lists to display the most-viewed shows and movies, for English and non-English titles, ranked by aggregate viewing hours  —  Netflix says it's heard the complaints about how it “cherry picks” the self-reported data it releases about content viewed on its platform.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Tel Aviv-based Laminar, which helps companies manage public cloud data security, emerges from stealth with $37M across seed and Series A  —  The cloud may be the direction that much of enterprise IT is moving today, but it still remains a major source of security issues …
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Brave now has a built-in cryptocurrency wallet, sidestepping the need for extension-based wallets like MetaMask  —  Why use an extension when it's a built-in tool?  —  Brave has announced that its web browser now includes a native cryptocurrency wallet, replacing the previous one that was based on the MetaMask wallet extension.

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Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire: