Techmeme: New York-based ScaleOps, which offers cloud spend management tools, raised a $58M Series B led by Lightspeed, taking its total funding to $80M (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

Top News

Meta plans to ask Facebook and Instagram users in Europe if they want to get “less personalized ads” and cuts subscription prices by 40%, a concession to the EU — Facebook and Instagram owner faces pressure in Europe to ask users before using their data to target ads or train artificial intelligence

More: Meta, PYMNTS.com, TechCrunch, Associated Press, Reuters, noyb, Bloomberg, RTÉ, WinBuzzer, Axios, Irish Independent, and The Verge

X: @eric_seufert and @metanewsemea

Ming-Chi Kuo:

Kuo: Apple schedules production of a smart home IP camera for 2026 and is aiming for 10M+ annual shipments; Goertek will be the exclusive assembly supplier — 1. Apple is making its first foray into the smart home IP camera market, with mass production scheduled for 2026, targeting annual shipments in the tens of millions.

More: PCMag, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, Thurrott, PhoneArena, Digital Trends, The Ankler, Wccftech, Tom's Guide, T3, Android Headlines, Neowin, The Information, Android Authority, Supercharged, The Shortcut, BGR, Cult of Mac, AppleInsider, Benzinga, iClarified, and The Mac Observer

Threads: @rsgnl. Bluesky: @ravi64.com. X: @mingchikuo, @andrew_osu, @raywongy, and @mingchikuo. Forums: MacRumors Forums

Gian Volpicelli / Bloomberg:

The EU notifies Apple of “potentially prohibited geo-blocking practices” on the App Store and other apps, and says it must align with EU anti-geo-blocking rules — Alexa's New AI Brain Is Stuck in the Lab … Quicktake

More: European Commission, Thurrott, MacRumors, The Verge, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, Reuters, BNN Bloomberg, Neowin, TechRadar, WinBuzzer, Benzinga, and MacDailyNews

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Nvidia launches its Nvidia app for Windows, designed to overhaul and replace the GeForce Experience app, after a beta earlier in 2024 — Nvidia is officially launching its Nvidia app on PC today, designed to overhaul and replace the GeForce Experience app.

More: NVIDIA, VideoCardz.com, PCWorld, Engadget, Tom's Hardware, HotHardware, Club386, Tom's Guide, Guru3D, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, NVIDIA, MSPoweruser, Neowin, TweakTown, PCGamesN, Digital Trends, and PC Gamer

Paresh Dave / Wired:

Rival search engines Ecosia and Qwant debut European Search Perspective, a joint venture to develop a web index for Europe to reduce reliance on Google and Bing — Generative AI and new rules targeting tech giants are giving Ecosia and Qwant fuel to challenge Google and Microsoft and develop a web index for Europe.

More: TechCrunch, Verdict, International Business Times, Library Journal infoDOCKET, Neowin, and CNBC

Forums: Hacker News and Slashdot

Jay Peters / The Verge:

Signal rolls out new call features, including the ability to share a link to a call, emoji reactions, a “raise hand” button, and a dedicated calls history tab — Signal is making a bunch of improvements to calls so they are more competitive with Zoom and Google Meet, including the ability to share a link to a call.

More: Signal Messenger, 9to5Mac, Engadget, HotHardware, TechCrunch, PCMag, Android Police, TechRadar, PhoneArena, Neowin, RestorePrivacy, MakeUseOf, and Werd I/O

Threads: @quillmatiq. Mastodon: @ilyess@mastodon.online and @Mer__edith@mastodon.world

X: @mer__edith and @_maxgranger. Forums: r/signal

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

Writer, which makes enterprise generative AI tools, raised a $200M Series C led by Premji, Radical Ventures, and Iconiq at a $1.9B valuation, for $326M raised — Writer has raised $200 million at a $1.9 billion valuation to expand its generative AI platform.

More: Writer and Bloomberg

Financial Times:

Amazon's Annapurna Labs plans to unveil Trainium 2 AI chips in December, as part of taking on Nvidia; Anthropic, Databricks, and others are testing Trainium 2 — Big Tech group's Annapurna Labs is spending big to build custom chips that lessen its reliance on market leader

More: Reuters, Benzinga, 24/7 Wall St., Wccftech, WinBuzzer, and CIO.com. Forums: Ars OpenForum

Bloomberg:

SoftBank reports Q2 net income of ~$7.7B and a Vision Fund gain of ~$2.42B, driven by strong Indian IPOs and valuation gains in startups like Coupang and Didi — - Tech investor rakes in profit on hot Indian IPO market — Legacy-conscious founder Masayoshi Son is readying next gamble

More: Financial Times, CNBC, Tech Startups, Associated Press, Proactive, Moneycontrol, Financial Times, SoftBank Group Corp., The Economic Times, Tech in Asia, and Reuters

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

SoftBank says Vision Fund co-CEO Rajeev Misra will step down from his leadership roles; during his 10-year tenure, he led investments in WeWork, Wag, and others

More: globalventuring.com, Moneycontrol, The Economic Times, Bloomberg, YourStory.com, and Tech in Asia

Eleanor Olcott / Financial Times:

Baidu unveils smart glasses, powered by its Ernie LLM, that would “become a private assistant” by tracking calories, playing music, and more, launching in 2025 — Launch comes as Chinese internet groups jostle for dominance in hardware — Baidu has unveiled artificial …

More: Engadget, Reuters, South China Morning Post, WinBuzzer, and Cryptopolitan. Mastodon: @1br0wn@eupolicy.social

Financial Times:

Analysts: Nintendo and Sony are heading into the holiday season with little to offer consumers; the Switch is seven years old and the $700 PS5 Pro is overpriced — Video game industry fears its most important quarter will fall flat with few new mass-market offerings

More: TechRadar

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

New York-based ScaleOps, which offers cloud spend management tools, raised a $58M Series B led by Lightspeed, taking its total funding to $80M — Thanks to AI, the appetite for cloud services is growing. Cloud expenditures more than doubled between 2019 and 2023, and are expected …

More: SiliconANGLE and Globes Online

Bloomberg:

Alibaba, JD, and Xiaomi report a plethora of Singles' Day sales statistics to show how 2024's shopping event was one of the biggest yet, as China's economy sags — - Data shows sales surged, but over a much longer period — Analysts warn shoppers still show signs of moderated spending

More: South China Morning Post, Associated Press, Barron's Online, JD Corporate Blog, KrASIA, The Straits Times, and Benzinga

Reuters:

Ilya Sutskever says “we're back in the age of wonder and discovery” as AI companies focus on pre-training, inference improvements, and finding the “next thing” — Artificial intelligence companies like OpenAI are seeking to overcome unexpected delays and challenges …

More: PC Gamer, The Decoder, WinBuzzer, Hindustan Times, Decrypt, Business Insider, Android Headlines, Shelly Palmer, Sherwood News, and Analytics India Magazine

Bluesky: @jeczjan.bsky.social. X: @modestproposal1, @modestproposal1, and @readkrystalhu

Forums: r/aiwars, r/mlscaling, and Slashdot

Sponsor Posts

Google:

Try Gemini 3 Pro — Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life

Shopify:

Shopify's new AI commerce stack — Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.

Zoho:

Enhancements to Zoho Writer's automation flow designer: New PDF operations, password protection, and more — Once we rolled out the automation flow designer in Zoho Writer's merge templates …

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:

2025 In Review, 2026 Predictions — With Reed Albergotti

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.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

Podcast Pioneer PJ Vogt's Second Act: Less Budget, More Control

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.

BG2 Pod:

AI Enterprise - Databricks & Glean

Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.

Subscribe to BG2 Pod.

Great Chat:

The stories we told ourselves in 2025

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.

Grit:

How Brands Stay Visible When AI Decides | Profound CEO James Cadwallader

Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.

Subscribe to Grit.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:55 AM ET, November 12, 2024.

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.