Techmeme
November 2, 2022, 11:27 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: Elon Musk plans to cut ~3,700 jobs at Twitter, half of the company's workforce, starting November 4, and reverse its existing work-from-anywhere policy  —  Elon Musk plans to eliminate about 3,700 jobs at Twitter Inc., or half of the social media company's workforce …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Twitter aims to charge for verification as soon as November 7, with a grace period for current verified users, and give all users edit button access  —  Twitter Inc. aims to start selling blue verification badges for user profiles as soon as next week, part of a plan by new owner Elon Musk …
Washington Post:
Elon Musk says Twitter will not reinstate banned accounts “until we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks”  —  After Zoom meeting, Twitter boss tweets that no suspended accounts will return to site until there is clear process for doing so
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Sony plans to launch the PlayStation VR2 with Sense controllers and stereo headphones on February 22 for $550, £530, or €600; preorders open on November 15  —  Sony will launch its PSVR2 headset on February 22nd priced at $549.99.  The PSVR2 will be priced at $549.99 in the US …
Kate Irwin / Decrypt:
Meta is letting select Instagram US creators test a toolkit for minting NFTs and selling them on and off the platform, and says it won't charge fees until 2024  —  Instagram will soon have NFT creation and trading tools built in, but in-app purchases will be “subject to applicable app store fees.”
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Qualcomm expects to provide modem chips for the “vast majority” of iPhones in 2023, retaining its current foothold after previously planning to supply ~20%  —  Qualcomm Inc. will continue to provide the modem chips for the “vast majority” of iPhones in 2023 …
Reuters:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
South Korea-based Wemade, which develops the Wemix blockchain gaming platform, raised ~$46M from Microsoft, Shinhan Asset Management, and Kiwoom Securities  —  Microsoft has backed Wemade, a popular video game developer that has made aggressive bets on blockchain in recent years …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Google expands Google Play Games beta for PC to the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore, offering 85 Android games  —  Google Play Games is launching in open beta in the US today, allowing anyone to try out a selection of Android games on PC.
Elisa Lipsky-Karasz / Wall Street Journal:
A profile of, and interview with, Jony Ive, covering life before and after Apple, his design philosophy, his company LoveFrom, the importance of words, and more  —  can always write an awful lot that I can't draw,“ Jony Ive, the mastermind behind Apple's most revolutionary products, says as he holds up a Space Age-style coffee cup. ”
Patrick Clark / Bloomberg:
Home buying startup Opendoor lays off ~550 employees, or ~18% of its staff, after higher rates and a shift in prices forced the company to sell homes at a loss  —  Opendoor Technologies Inc. is laying off about 550 employees after higher mortgage rates cratered US housing demand.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Roku reports Q3 revenue up 12% YoY to $761.4M, vs. $694M est., 21.9B streaming hours, and 2.3M active accounts added; the stock drops 18%+ on weak Q4 guidance  —  Roku handily topped Wall Street estimates for the third quarter of 2022, as the streaming platform and media company packed …
Bloomberg:
Apple's unionized Maryland store filed a complaint with the NLRB after Apple withheld medical, educational, and other new benefits given to non-union workers  —  Apple Inc.'s unionized retail store in Maryland is filing a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board after it was excluded …
Ian Allison / CoinDesk:
A financial document details some ties between Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX and Alameda Research; Alameda's biggest asset is $3.66B of unlocked FTT, an FTX token  —  Alameda had $14.6 billion of assets as of June 30, according to a private document CoinDesk reviewed.
Karen Hao / Wall Street Journal:
China's Zhengzhou industrial park, home of Foxconn's most advanced iPhone plant, begins a weeklong lockdown to combat COVID-19's “severe and complicated” spread  —  HONG KONG—The industrial park where Foxconn Technology Group's iPhone assembly plant is struggling to maintain production amid …
Hamish McKenzie / On Substack:
Masha Borak / Wired:
Experts say the vast majority of independent Uyghur-run websites have ceased to exist, as Beijing's crackdown in the Muslim-majority Xinjiang region unfolded  —  China's Muslim minority used to have its own budding cluster of websites, forums, and social media.  Now that's been erased.

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work  —  Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.
Zoho:
Planned India Data Center Maintenance on 14th and 15th November 2026 from 06.00 AM to 07:00 AM IST for Zoho Payments  —  Dear customers,Our bi-annual infrastructure maintenance for our India Data Center is scheduled …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
WebBrain:
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser  —  Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox.  Use local models or your preferred AI provider.  Get started free.

Featured Podcasts

Great Chat:
Too soon to call it a vibe shift?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Big Technology Podcast:
Storm Clouds Ahead For Apple?, Debating Amazon's Bee Frontier, AI as UI
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.
Machine Gods:
Jensen Huang's Nvidiotic Spy Scandal + Can Dems Pass AI Regulation?
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
Subscribe to Machine Gods.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Encore: Chuck Klosterman on Why Football Owns TV (and Why It Won't Forever)
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.
Invest Like the Best:
Zach Reitano - Building Ro and Why Healthcare Should Be 50% of GDP
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Sources:
Amazon AWS CEO: AI boom is just getting started
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:27 PM ET, November 2, 2022.

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

Chris Welch / The Verge:
Raksha Kumar / Rest of World:
Wall Street Journal:
Washington Post: