Techmeme
October 30, 2021, 10:30 AM

Top News

Gene Park / Washington Post:
Meta is just playing catch-up as Roblox, Steam VR, VRChat, and other platforms have already developed metaverse-like experiences  —  In addition to announcing Facebook's rebranding to Meta on Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg delivered a number of lofty promises about the metaverse and its features.
Ethan Zuckerman / The Atlantic:
Meta's promised metaverse is going to be boring and is meant to distract us from the world that Facebook helped break  —  In a booth at Ted's Fish Fry, in Troy, New York, my friend Daniel Beck and I sketched out our plans for the metaverse.  It was November 1994, just as the graphical web …
Mark Zuckerberg / About Facebook:
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Meta acquires Within, the company behind VR fitness game Supernatural; Within will continue working on the game and help Meta improve future VR hardware  —  The company already owns Beat Saber  —  Meta has announced that the studio behind VR workout game Supernatural will be joining the company …
The Verge:
Apple MacBook Pro 14- and 16-inch review: incredible performance with very long battery life and beautiful displays but expensive with absurd RAM pricing  —  Apple's new pro laptops right the wrongs of the past half decade  —  Let's start simply: the new MacBook Pros with M1 Pro and M1 Max chips …
Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal:
Apple's VP of Mac and iPad Product Marketing Tom Boger says Touch ID is more convenient than Face ID on a laptop since users' hands are already on the keyboard  —  Full-size ports, real function keys and other retro features, plus cutting-edge M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, make the new MacBook Pro models the laptops to beat
Damon Beres / Wired:
Advocates for the blind say DMCA exemptions to break ebook DRM for accessibility should be permanent, rather than having to be renewed every three years  —  Advocates will once again be granted a DMCA exception to make accessible versions of texts.  They argue that it's far past time to make it permanent.
Foreign Affairs:
How the rhetoric surrounding techno-globalism has shifted, from countries advocating for a free, open internet to imposing limits to protect national interests  —  Two key words were missing from the statements that followed the inaugural in-person summit in September of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue …
Samantha Subin / CNBC:
Microsoft had a nearly $2.49T market cap at close on Friday, passing Apple's $2.46T market cap to become the world's most valuable public company  —  - Microsoft passed Apple in market cap on Friday, making it the world's most valuable public company.  — The move comes after Apple …
Delia Cai / Vanity Fair:
Q&A with EIC Nilay Patel on The Verge's 10th anniversary, tech media's advance from early breathless gadget reviews, subject-source relationships, and more  —  After a decade covering the Zucks, Googles, and Ubers of the scene, the Verge editor in chief reflects on tech's troublesome relationship with the rest of the world.
New York Times:
A look at a16z's crypto lobbying and draft legislation it is circulating in DC, which some worry may create regulatory loopholes for its portfolio companies  —  The Silicon Valley firm Andreessen Horowitz, whose founders played big roles in the development of the internet …
Wall Street Journal:
Nick Clegg, Amy Klobuchar, Josh Hawley, Chris Hughes, Clay Shirky, and others on how to reform social media platforms and limit their harm  —  Revelations about Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have highlighted the problems posed by the biggest social media sites.  What would it take to reform the platforms and limit their harm?

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More News

Joanna Glasner / Crunchbase News:

Earlier Picks

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
Apple: