Techmeme
October 21, 2021, 3:00 PM

Top News

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
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 …
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:
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.
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.
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 …
More: Twitter
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.
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.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon rolls out Local Selling, an in-store pickup option for items from local businesses in the US  —  - Amazon said Thursday it will let third-party sellers offer in-store pickup to shoppers who live near the merchant's brick-and-mortar stores.  — In-store pickup, or click-and-collect ordering …
More: TechCrunch and Business Wire.  Tweets: @rustybrick
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Microsoft Surface Duo 2 review: futuristic design, excellent multitasking, and useful pen support, but buggy, lousy camera, expensive, and awkward form factor  —  Microsoft's second attempt at a folding phone rights a lot of the original's wrongs, but doesn't fix everything

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Featured Podcasts

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Sources:
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Earlier Picks

Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Aisha Counts / Protocol: