Techmeme
November 16, 2021, 1:40 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Activision CEO failed to inform the board about allegations an employee had been raped by her supervisor in 2016 and 2017, even after a settlement  —  Top executive didn't inform board of some reports, including alleged rapes; company faces multiple regulatory investigations
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Qualcomm says its next-gen PC CPUs will be designed by its recently acquired Nuvia team, hopes they will reach end users in 2023 and be “M-series competitive”  —  Developed by the Nuvia team  —  Qualcomm is looking to seriously beef up its PC processors, with the company announcing plans …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Twitter stops automatically refreshing timelines on the web with new tweets, after users complained about disappearing tweets  —  Twitter is updating its web platform to change the way users see new tweets.  The social media giant will no longer automatically refresh timelines on the web with new tweets …
Meghan Bobrowsky / Wall Street Journal:
Ryan Broderick / Garbage Day:
As some Twitter users mock NFTs and Web3 believers retaliate, a16z, Meta, and others are investing in the crypto industry to remake the internet in their image  —  Read to the end for a really good supercut  —  Who Will Win The Web3 Culture War?  —  On Friday, I wrote about how furries …
Bloomberg:
Celebrity NFTs from Grimes, A$AP Rocky, John Cena, and others have dropped significantly in value, leaving some buyers with large losses  —  Tokens from Grimes and A$AP Rocky fall, leaving buyers with losses  —  Celebrities like the musician Grimes have been quick to cash in on nonfungible tokens …
Bloomberg:
UK supermarket Sainsbury's becomes the first known customer for Amazon's Just Walk Out tech outside the US, starting with a London store opening November 29  —  - Sainsbury is first ‘Just Walk Out’ customer outside the U.S.  — Grocery expected to open Nov. 29 with shop-and-go technology
Sam Shead / CNBC:
The UK refers Nvidia's planned Arm acquisition to the CMA for a full 24-week investigation, citing antitrust and national security concerns  —  - Digital and Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries ordered a “phase 2” probe into Nvidia's $40 billion bid for Arm on Tuesday.
Fred Wilson / AVC:
Seed rounds at $100M post-money valuations, now fairly common, are unlikely to perform well for investors, given dilution and early startups' high failure rate  —  We have been seeing quite a few seed rounds getting done in and around $100mm post-money and that concerns me for a few reasons:
Rob Pegoraro / PCMag:
Pew: 42% of US users read Twitter primarily for entertainment, 20% for news; one-third of users visit Twitter less than once a week, 66% visit at least weekly  —  More tweeps read Twitter primarily for entertainment, but among the 69% who report getting news on Twitter …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Badges for Instagram Live, in testing for over a year, rolls out as a way for users to pay and support creators; Instagram won't take a cut until 2023  —  Its ‘Badges’ are officially launching in the US  —  Today, Instagram is officially launching its Badges feature, which gives viewers …
More: Engadget
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Twitter makes its v2 API, announced in August 2020, the default for developers, giving third-party apps more freedom as it aims to become more decentralized  —  Twitter's new API is finally official, which could mean good things for third-party clients  —  Twitter has announced …
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
People Data Labs, which offers data-as-a-service through APIs with 3B profiles of people globally, raises a $45M Series B led by Craft Ventures  —  People Data Labs (PDL), a company that's setting out to create a “single source of truth” for B2B data products based on 3 billion people profiles globally …
Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times:
Substack says it has reached 1M paying subscribers, up from 250,000 last December  —  Many top journalists have left legacy media to go it alone on publishing platform  —  Newsletter start-up Substack has reached 1m paying subscribers, underlining the growing power of à la carte journalism …
Suhauna Hussain / Los Angeles Times:
Amazon agrees to pay $500K to California for concealing COVID-19 case numbers from its workers, the first such action under the state's new “right to know” law  —  Amazon has agreed to pay $500,000 to better enforce state consumer protection laws after California's attorney general …

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More News

Martin Matishak / The Record:

Earlier Picks

Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Hartley Charlton / MacRumors:
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Packy McCormick / Not Boring:
Sam White / British GQ:
Miles Kruppa / Financial Times: