Techmeme
October 14, 2021, 9:40 AM

Top News

James Vincent / The Verge:
Facebook details Ego4D, an AI research project done in partnership with 13 universities to improve egocentric perception with potential to improve AI assistants  —  AI tools that could one day appear in Facebook's AR glasses  —  Facebook is pouring a lot of time and money into augmented reality …
Nikkei Asia:
TSMC says it will build its first plant in Japan, focusing on 22nm and 28nm chips, becoming operational in 2024  —  Taiwan titan warns of softening smartphone and PC demand amid supply chain chaos  —  TAIPEI — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world's biggest contract chipmaker …
Ryan Mac / New York Times:
Facebook sets some internal message boards to private, including discussions on platform safety and election integrity, limiting which employees have access  —  Facebook told employees on Tuesday that it was making some of its internal online discussion groups private, in an effort to minimize leaks.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Twitter begins testing ads directly in replies, after the first, third, or eighth reply to a tweet, on iOS and Android globally  —  Just kidding, it's a bad place  —  I don't know about you, but I sometimes feel like Twitter is overloaded with ads in my feed.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Activision announces the Ricochet anti-cheating system for Call of Duty: Warzone, which uses a PC kernel-level driver and ML to examine player behavior  —  Activision is cracking down on Call of Duty cheaters  —  Activision and Raven Software are finally cracking down on cheating in Call of Duty: Warzone.
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Facebook says it is expanding its “less political” News Feed test to 75 new countries, for a total of more than 80  —  Facebook is slowly expanding its effort to weed out political content from News Feed.  The company is now testing its “less political” feed in 75 new countries, Facebook said in an update.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple says a virtual event, titled “Unleashed”, will be held on October 18 at 10am PT, where new MacBook Pros with M1X are expected  —  Apple today announced that it will be holding a special event on Monday, October 18 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time.
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Facebook says it now counts activists and journalists as “involuntary” public figures to help protect them and will remove sexual content targeting celebrities  —  Facebook said it will remove “severe sexualizing content” targeting public figures — including celebrities …
Tara Deschamps / Canadian Press:
Up to 70% of Instacart couriers in the US and Canada could walk off the job this weekend, demanding at least a 10% default tip, commissions, and pay by order  —  Canadian and American Instacart workers plan to walk off the job this weekend in a bid to secure better pay and more benefits.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
London-based point of sale provider SumUp acquires Fivestars, which offers loyalty, marketing, payments, and other services to small merchants, for $317M  —  SumUp, a European-based competitor to Square, PayPal/iZettle and others that provide mobile-powered card readers and other sales technology …
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Tel Aviv-based Karma, which offers AI-powered online shopping tools to save money, raises a $25M Series A led by Target Global  —  AI shopping assistant and shopping network Karma announced that it has raised $25 million in Series A funding led by Target Global followed by MoreTech Ventures …
More: FinSMEs
Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch:
Tala, which provides mobile-first financial services in emerging markets, raises a $145M Series E led by Upstart, source says at a $800M+ valuation  —  Tala, an emerging markets digital lender that offers loans between $10 to $500 to consumers and small business owners, has raised $145 million in Series E funding.
More: FinSMEs, CoinDesk, and Forbes
Dan Taylor / Tech.eu:
Juni, a neobank catering to e-commerce and online marketing companies, extends its Series A to $73M  —  Just three months since the first announcement of their Series A raise at $21.5 million, the seemingly darling banking platform for e-commerce players, Juni has more than doubled the first portion of the raise to a hefty $73 million.
More: Finextra, Insider, and Sifted
Bloomberg:
Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp, who works as its chief design and creative officer, steps down to join Jony Ive's LoveFrom  —  - Sharp has run Pinterest design and product teams since 2011  — Company is still dealing with discrimination accusations  —  Pinterest Inc. co-founder Evan Sharp …

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