Techmeme
November 2, 2021, 6:50 PM

Top News

New York Times:
Meta plans to shut down Facebook's decade-old facial recognition system this month, deleting the face scan data of 1B+ users following legal and regulatory woes  —  Saying it wants “to find the right balance” with the technology, the social network will delete the face scan data of more than one billion users.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft will bring its mixed reality platform Mesh with 3D avatars and VR support to Teams in the first half of 2022  —  Microsoft and Meta are on a collision course for metaverse competition  —  Microsoft is entering the race to build a metaverse inside Teams, just days after Facebook rebranded …
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Microsoft announces Loop, an app that combines a “flexible canvas” with collaborative components that sync across Microsoft 365 services  —  Join gaming leaders online at GamesBeat Summit Next this upcoming November 9-10.  Learn more about what comes next.
Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
Zillow says it is shutting down its home buying business, laying off ~2,000 employees, and taking a write down of $500M+; stock drops 10%+  —  Zillow Group's ambitious tech-fueled bid to shake up how people buy and sell homes is coming to a surprising end.  —  The Seattle online real estate giant …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Zoom says it is testing ads on its free Basic tier; the ads appear on the browser page shown to users at the end of a call  —  They'll appear in a browser page at the end of meetings  —  Zoom is piloting showing ads to users on its free “Basic” tier, the company has announced in a blog post.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Netflix rolls out its exclusive mobile games globally to the Play Store and plans to feature them in its Android app starting this week  —  After early tests in select markets, Netflix announced today its debut lineup of exclusive mobile games will begin rolling out to all members globally on Android devices, starting this week.
Mike Minotti / VentureBeat:
Activision Blizzard says Blizzard co-leader Jen Oneal is stepping down, leaving Mike Ybarra as sole leader; Oneal says she'll focus on diversity in the industry  —  Join gaming leaders online at GamesBeat Summit Next this upcoming November 9-10.  Learn more about what comes next.
Nikkei Asia:
Sources: Nintendo will only be able to produce ~24M units of its Switch game console in FY 2021 due to chip shortages, 20% below its original plan of 30M  —  Production revised down to 24 million units for fiscal 2021 despite high demand  —  OSAKA — Nintendo will only be able to produce …
Nikkei Asia:
Sources: Apple has cut iPad production by 50% from its original plans for the past two months, to allocate more chips to the iPhone 13  —  U.S. tech giant produces 50% fewer tablets than planned in September-October  —  TAIPEI — Apple has cut back sharply on iPad production to allocate …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Coinbase is acquiring Agara, which operates an AI-powered customer support platform in India and the US; sources say the price is between $40M and $50M  —  Coinbase is acquiring the startup Agara, which operates an AI-powered customer support platform, the two said Tuesday …
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft Edge for Linux is now available for all users, supporting multiple distributions including Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and openSUSE  —  It's ‘Chredge’ time for Linux: Microsoft's Edge browser is now generally available for a number of Linux distributions.
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Researchers discover a Unicode security vulnerability that affects most code compilers, including for Go, C++, C#, JavaScript, Java, Rust, and Python  —  Virtually all compilers — programs that transform human-readable source code into computer-executable machine code …
Cameron Faulkner / The Verge:
Oculus rolls out v34, adding a Space Sense safety feature notifying users when objects, people, or animals intrude on a safe VR space, alongside other features  —  Version 34 is starting to roll out today  —  Fresh off of Meta's Connect 2021 keynote, where Grand Theft Auto …
Liza Lin / Wall Street Journal:
Yahoo pulls its services out of China in a largely symbolic gesture following LinkedIn, citing an “increasingly challenging business and legal environment”  —  Yahoo Inc. said it was pulling out of China, citing an increasingly challenging business and legal environment …
Jessica Bursztynsky / CNBC:
Lyft reports Q3 revenue of $864.4M, up 73% YoY and 13% QoQ, but misses with 18.9M active riders vs 19.7M estimated  —  - Lyft reported third-quarter earnings on Tuesday after the bell, sending shares surging in extended trading.  — Lyft CEO Logan Green said driver supply materially improved …
More: TechCrunch and Lyft
Clara Molot / Bloomberg:
Match Group reports Q3 revenue of $802M, up 25% YoY, with 16.3M paying users, up 16% YoY, but forecasts weaker Q4 growth, citing lingering COVID effects in Asia  —  - Fourth-quarter revenue comes in short; Ebitda is in line  — Third-quarter revenue up 25%, meeting analysts' estimates
Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch:
Chipper Cash, which provides cross-border payments services in Africa, raises a $150M Series C extension led by cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX  —  Chipper Cash, an African cross-border payments company, has raised $150 million in a Series C extension round led by Sam Bankman-Fried's cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Lumigo, a cloud-native observability service for application monitoring and debugging, raises a $29M Series A led by Redline Capital  —  Lumigo, a cloud-native application monitoring and debugging platform, today announced that it has raised a $29 million Series A funding round led by Redline Capital.
More: Lumigo

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