Techmeme
October 21, 2021, 1:50 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 …
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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: Business WireTweets: @rustybrick
MK Manoylov / The Block:
Mojito, which lets clients like Sotheby's sell NFTs from their own storefronts or websites, raises $20M at a $100M valuation  —  Mojito, the startup supporting Sotheby's Metaverse, announced Thursday that it raised $20 million in its first funding round, bringing its total valuation to $100 million.
More: Decrypt, CoinDesk, and Forbes
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:
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
Parallel, which is making a sci-fi NFT card game based on the Ethereum blockchain, raises $50M from Paradigm at a $500M valuation  —  It's no secret that NFTs have been a hot space for crypto speculators in the Ethereum ecosystem to diversify their holdings, and while some see a golden opportunity …
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

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify's new AI commerce stack  —  Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.
Zoho:
From content collaboration to content intelligence: Zoho WorkDrive's 2025 journey  —  As 2025 draws to a close, we're reflecting on a year marked by meaningful progress, purposeful innovation, and continuous learning at Zoho WorkDrive.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Sam Altman: How OpenAI Wins, AI Buildout Logic, IPO in 2026?
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Access:
Betting on reality with Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Lenny's Podcast:
The new AI growth playbook for 2026: How Lovable hit $200M ARR in one year | Elena Verna (Head of Growth)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
"Neither Side Is Used to Losing." Lucas Shaw on What's Next for Netflix and Paramount in the Battle for Warner Bros.
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Saam Motamedi from Greylock Partners
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:50 PM ET, October 21, 2021.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

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