Sources: employees at many Apple stores continue to discuss unionization, Apple started to record September event; opinion: iPadOS delay was probably worth it  —  Apple made the right call to push back iPadOS 16, but the move could create new issues for users and developers.

[Thread] Via iRobot, Amazon, one of the most powerful data collection companies on Earth, will get another vast and intrusive set of data about people's homes  —  1. Hello. Amazon today announced it would pay $1.7 billion to acquire iRobot, the company behind the Roomba robotic vacuum. It may be the most dangerous, threatening acquisition in the company's history. A thread.

An examination of data collected by Tesla: what information its vehicles record, how Tesla uses this data to develop Autopilot, and who actually owns the data  —  Logs and records of its customers' journeys fill out petabytes—and court case dockets  —  You won't see a single Tesla cruising …

Tom Alberg, an early Amazon investor and Madrona Venture Group co-founder, who was a key figure in shaping the Pacific Northwest's tech economy, dies at 82  —  Tom Alberg, co-founder of the venture capital firm Madrona Venture Group and an early investor in Amazon.com Inc., has died.  He was 82.

Fitbit will end desktop syncing for PC and macOS in October, moving file transfers to its smartphone app, and local music and playlists to Deezer and Pandora  —  One way you synced the very first Fitbit devices was by connecting a dock to your desktop computer and plugging in the tracker.

Online crypto casinos like Stake are luring gamers into gambling, sometimes to the point of bankruptcy, with celebrity endorsements and sponsored Twitch streams  —  Enneric Chabot, 26, didn't start gambling until he saw his favorite gamers doing it online.  —  Three years ago …

[Thread] How Apple's App Tracking Transparency blew up the digital ad ecosystem, bolstering the company's ad business while positioning it as a privacy champion  —  APPLE ROBBED THE MOB'S BANK: How Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy blew up the digital advertising ecosystem, bolstering its ads business while positioning itself as a champion of consumer privacy. A masterclass in corporate strategy. (1/X) https://mobiledevmemo.com/...

China's Baidu secures permits for a fully driverless commercial robotaxi service in Chongqing and Wuhan that will operate largely in zones with revamped roads  —  Chinese internet giant Baidu has secured permits to offer a fully driverless commercial robotaxi service, with no human driver present …

At least four top executives associated with a Chinese state-run semiconductor fund, which has invested $30B in total, have been arrested on corruption charges  —  The arrests of several top semiconductor fund executives could force the government to rethink how it invests in the sector.

Inside the “YouTube automation” cottage industry that is persuading people to spend thousands of dollars on tutorials for creating video businesses on YouTube  —  A cottage industry is persuading people to spend thousands to create video businesses on YouTube.  Disclaimer: It is harder than it looks.

London-based Cera, whose app uses data analytics and AI to manage at-home health care, has raised $320M split equally between debt and equity led by Kairos HQ  —  Cera, a UK provider of healthcare inside people's homes augmented by a platform that allows carers to monitor a patient's health …