Techmeme
October 14, 2021, 1:15 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft is shuttering the Chinese version of LinkedIn and replacing it with a job board; sources say China told LinkedIn in March to better regulate content  —  LinkedIn cites challenging operating environment, as retreat marks the biggest departure from China by a major tech company in years
John D. McKinnon / Wall Street Journal:
A bipartisan Senate bill, unveiled Thursday, would ban internet platforms from favoring their own products or services, known as self-preferencing  —  Bipartisan legislation set to be unveiled in the Senate Thursday aims to stop tech companies from favoring their own products
The Markup:
Investigation finds Amazon places its own brands above competitors, even those with higher ratings and more sales, despite telling Congress otherwise  —  Above Better-Rated Products  —  The online giant gives a leg up to hundreds of house brand and exclusive products that most people don't know are connected to Amazon
Harmeet Singh Walia / Counterpoint Research:
In Q2 2021, Apple captured 75% of the overall handset market operating profit and 40% of revenue despite accounting for only 13% of global smartphone shipments  —  The dynamics of the top global handset OEMs keep changing from a shipment point of view, as we saw with Xiaomi becoming …
James Vincent / The Verge:
Facebook details Ego4D, an AI research project in partnership with 13 universities to improve egocentric perception with potential to improve AI assistants  —  AI tools that could one day appear in Facebook's AR glasses  —  Facebook is pouring a lot of time and money into augmented reality …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google rolls out continuous scrolling for English-language mobile search results in the US  —  Google announced today it's changing the way search works on mobile devices, initially in the U.S. Now, when you reach the bottom of a set of search results on your phone, you won't have to tap to go to the next page.
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
HTC announces $499 Vive Flow, a VR headset that requires an external battery and uses an Android phone as a wireless controller, available in November  —  After years of focusing on business-oriented virtual reality, HTC is launching a $499 entertainment-focused headset called the Vive Flow in November …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Twitter begins testing ads in replies on Android and iOS globally, placed after the first, third, or eighth reply to a tweet  —  Just kidding, it's a bad place  —  I don't know about you, but I sometimes feel like Twitter is overloaded with ads in my feed.
Wilson Walker / CBS San Francisco:
Residents of a quiet San Francisco street say Waymo's self-driving cars are flocking to the neighborhood throughout the day, seemingly confused by a dead end  —  SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — A normally quiet neighborhood in San Francisco is buzzing about a sudden explosion of traffic.
Nikkei Asia:
TSMC says it will build its first plant in Japan, focusing on 22nm and 28nm chips, starting construction in 2022 and operations in 2024  —  Taiwan titan warns of softening smartphone and PC demand amid supply chain chaos  —  TAIPEI — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. …
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Facebook says it is expanding its “less political” News Feed test to 75 new countries, for a total of more than 80  —  Facebook is slowly expanding its effort to weed out political content from News Feed.  The company is now testing its “less political” feed in 75 new countries, Facebook said in an update.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Activision announces the Ricochet anti-cheating system for Call of Duty: Warzone, which uses a PC kernel-level driver and ML to examine player behavior  —  Activision is cracking down on Call of Duty cheaters  —  Activision and Raven Software are finally cracking down on cheating in Call of Duty: Warzone.
Campbell Kwan / ZDNet:
Analysis of 80M ransomware samples: Israel and South Korea are the most affected countries; GandCrab was the most active ransomware gang since the start of 2020  —  Israel has submitted the largest amount of ransomware samples since the start of 2020, according to a study.
Ari Levy / CNBC:
GitLab opens up 22% on its first day of trading, after raising $801M in its IPO at an $11B valuation  —  - GitLab started trading on the Nasdaq on Thursday under ticker symbol “GTLB.”  — The company, whose code-sharing software competes with Microsoft's GitHub, raised about $650 million in its IPO …
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Groove, which provides customer service software for SMBs, raises a $45M Series B led by Viking Global, bringing its total raised to $57M  —  Join gaming leaders online at GamesBeat Summit Next this upcoming November 9-10.  Learn more about what comes next.
More: Groove
Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
US court filing details how fraudsters used AI to clone a UAE company director's voice to steal $35M in early 2020  —  AI voice cloning is used in a huge heist in the U.A.E, according to Dubai investigators, amidst warnings about cybercriminal use of the new technology.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
London-based point of sale provider SumUp acquires Fivestars, which offers loyalty, marketing, payments, and other services to small merchants, for $317M  —  SumUp, a European-based competitor to Square, PayPal/iZettle and others that provide mobile-powered card readers and other sales technology …

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Ryan Mac / New York Times:
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