Techmeme
October 21, 2021, 3:40 PM

Top News

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
ABC News:
Trump announces the Trump Media & Technology Group and TRUTH Social, a social network coming in Nov. to “stand up” to Big Tech, in the App Store for preorder  —  The former president has been banned from several platforms.  —  Silenced by many major platforms …
Joseph Cox / VICE:
Mastodon founder says Trump's TRUTH Social seems to be using a Mastodon fork, based on a screenshot of an error message featuring Mastodon's elephant mascot  —  ‘Truth Social’, which will launch officially later in the year, is seemingly using Mastodon's codebase without credit.  —  Joseph Cox
Oversight Board:
Facebook's Oversight Board releases a report demanding more transparency, including for the company's “cross-check” system, and says 524K appeals were submitted  —  Over the last several weeks, media reporting has drawn renewed attention to the seemingly inconsistent …
Anna Kramer / Protocol:
Twitter says its research shows its algorithms amplify right-leaning content more than left-leaning content, but doesn't know what causes the amplification  —  Twitter is publicly sharing research findings today that show that the platform's algorithms amplify tweets from right-wing politicians …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple product orders, including iPad mini, MacBook Pro, and $19 cleaning cloth, are delayed into November and December due to supply chain issues  —  - Store employees say supply situation is the bleakest in years  — Latest iPhones, iPads, Macs and watches all see long delays
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Sam Altman's Worldcoin launches its cryptocurrency that it gives in exchange for users' eye scans, says it has 100K users globally and is valued at $1B  —  - Tech millionaire Sam Altman's new start-up Worldcoin uses orb-shaped devices to scan people's eyes in exchange for free cryptocurrency.
Wall Street Journal:
US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announces a broad investigation into consumer data practices at Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Google, and others  —  Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is expected to seek information on how those firms and others use consumers' financial information
Sam Rutherford / Gizmodo:
Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming service adds a $100/month tier with RTX 3080 GPUs, hosted inside a bespoke SuperPod server, offering 1440p games at 120fps  —  Thanks to new custom servers equipped with RTX 3080 GPUs, GeForce Now will support game streaming at up to 1440p at 120fps—but it'll cost you.
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Sources: Mark Zuckerberg has not settled on a new name for Facebook, which could be announced as early as Monday  —  See you Monday!  —  Facebook is changing its name.  Perhaps you heard.  The news was broken by Alex Heath of The Verge on Tuesday night, and I've since confirmed it with sources of my own.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
A first look at Android app support on Windows 11: the apps are nicely integrated, run well, and installing them is simple, only requiring Amazon's Appstore app  —  Android apps can now run on Windows 11  —  Microsoft has released the first preview version of its Android apps support in Windows 11.
Danny Nelson / CoinDesk:
Bahamas-based crypto exchange FTX raises a $420.69M Series B-1 at a $25B valuation from 69 investors, including BlackRock and Tiger Global  —  FTX has memed itself into another massive funding round.  —  Sam Bankman-Fried's Bahamas-based crypto exchange said Wednesday it had raised $420,690,000 in a Series B-1 funding round.
Wall Street Journal:
Over 2,000 hourly workers at Amazon's Staten Island facilities sign union cards and plan to file with the NLRB by October 25; Amazon opposes the move  —  An effort said to involve more than 2,000 workers across four Amazon facilities in Staten Island faces obstacles
Ben Sisario / New York Times:
PleasrDAO, a group of digital asset collectors, says it created an NFT that will stand as an ownership deed for Wu-Tang Clan's one-of-a-kind physical album  —  The government sold “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” to satisfy a judgment against its first owner, Martin Shkreli.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Twitter rolls out the ability for all Android and iOS users to host a Space, after previously limiting access to accounts with at least 600 followers  —  After steadily expanding access over the course of the year, Twitter announced today its audio chatroom feature known as Twitter Spaces …
More: 9to5Mac
Alan Rappeport / New York Times:
Austria, France, Italy, Spain, and UK reach a deal with the US to drop digital services taxes on Big Tech companies as part of a global tax overhaul in 2023  —  WASHINGTON — The United States reached an agreement on Thursday with Austria, France, Italy, Spain and Britain that will terminate …

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More News

Dan Seifert / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Aisha Counts / Protocol: