Techmeme
November 17, 2021, 8:10 AM

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
Shannon Liao / Washington Post:
Over 100 Activision Blizzard employees staged a walkout on Tuesday after a WSJ report, the second in four months, demanding CEO Bobby Kotick step down  —  This story has been updated from a previous version.  —  IRVINE, Calif. — Employees at beleaguered video game company Activision Blizzard walked …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Meta details a haptic glove prototype that uses air pockets to simulate touching objects in VR and has been in development for seven years  —  A new sci-fi interface for the metaverse  —  You cannot pet a dog in Meta's new, high-tech virtual reality gloves.  But researchers are getting closer.
Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire:
Sam Dean / Los Angeles Times:
LA's iconic Staples Center to be renamed as Crypto.com Arena, sources say in a deal worth $700M+ for 20 years  —  Staples Center is getting a new name for Christmas: Crypto.com Arena.  —  The downtown Los Angeles venue — home of the Lakers, Clippers, Kings and Sparks …
Sean Endicott / Windows Central:
Microsoft shifts Windows 10 from two major updates per year to one, and announces that only Windows 11 will support emulating x64 apps on ARM devices  —  You'll have to upgrade your Windows on ARM PC to use x64 emulation.  —  What you need to know  — Microsoft discussed the status of x64 emulation for Windows on ARM today.
Bloomberg:
Amazon tells UK customers it won't accept Visa credit cards issued in the UK from January 19, 2022, citing high transaction fees  —  - Customers told the change will come into effect in Jan. 2022  — Amazon cites high fees charged by Visa as reason for change
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Netflix expands its Top 10 lists to display the most-viewed shows and movies, for English and non-English titles, ranked by aggregate viewing hours  —  Netflix says it's heard the complaints about how it “cherry picks” the self-reported data it releases about content viewed on its platform.
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
Israeli spyware vendor Candiru, recently blacklisted by the US, waged “watering hole” attacks on UK and Middle East websites critical of Saudi Arabia and others  —  Cybersecurity researchers tracked a hacking campaign spanning more than a year that hit around 20 websites.
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Brave now has a built-in cryptocurrency wallet, sidestepping the need for extension-based wallets like MetaMask  —  Why use an extension when it's a built-in tool?  —  Brave has announced that its web browser now includes a native cryptocurrency wallet, replacing the previous one that was based on the MetaMask wallet extension.
Gene Maddaus / Variety:
Miramax sues Quentin Tarantino over copyright infringement for selling NFTs based on Pulp Fiction screenplay excerpts; Miramax says it owns screenplay rights  —  Miramax filed a lawsuit on Tuesday accusing Quentin Tarantino of copyright infringement by selling NFTs based on the screenplay for “Pulp Fiction.”
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Tel Aviv-based Laminar, which helps companies manage public cloud data security, emerges from stealth with $37M across seed and Series A  —  The cloud may be the direction that much of enterprise IT is moving today, but it still remains a major source of security issues …
Celestine Bohlen / New York Times:
As Moscow Metro introduces Face Pay, digital privacy activists express alarm at the implications of introducing city-wide facial recognition  —  The latest example is Face Pay, which replaces a Metro card with facial recognition.  It may be advanced, but activists are sounding the alarm on privacy issues.
Charles Daly / Bloomberg:
Microsoft launches a datacenter region in Sweden that runs solely on renewable energy, in partnership with state-owned utility Vattenfall  —  - Customers for the centers include Handelsbanken, PostNord  — Facilities to use green energy supplied by utility Vattenfall
Nicole Wetsman / The Verge:
The FDA authorizes AppliedVR's EaseVRx as a prescription VR treatment for chronic lower back pain in adults  —  It joins a handful of other digital therapeutics  —  The Food and Drug Administration authorized a virtual reality system as a prescription treatment for chronic back pain, the agency announced today.
Axios:
Analysis: the top five most-followed accounts on TikTok do not rank in the top 50 on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or Instagram  —  The creator economy has produced thousands of social media entrepreneurs who have built mega-audiences in the millions — larger than many media companies.
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Qualcomm says its next-gen PC CPUs will be designed by its recently acquired Nuvia team, hopes they will ship in devices 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:
Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch:
South African payments gateways service Ozow, which makes online transactions simpler, raises a $48M Series B led by Tencent  —  According to a 2019 report by Deloitte, about 80% of South Africans have a bank account but only 24% of them make more than three transactions monthly.

Sponsor Posts

TELUS Digital:
Are you ready for the era of agentic AI?  —  Tech leaders are always talking about what's next, and right now, agentic AI is dominating the discourse.  Equip yourself with the info you need in this recorded webinar.
Tribe AI:
State of AI: Adoption, Challenges and Recommendations  —  Examining the current state of AI, the key challenges organizations face, and practical recommendations for utilizing AI integration alongside other best practices.
Zoho:
Unveiling AI-powered updates in Zoho Sheet  —  In 2024, we, the Zoho Sheet team, dedicated ourselves to research and development in order to introduce new features that enhance productivity, data management, collaboration, and other functionalities.
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.

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
Why COULDN'T Apple Make An iPhone In The US?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Derek Thompson (Writer, The Atlantic) and Zach Weinberg (Co-founder & CEO, Curie.Bio) Discuss the Tariff Withdrawal and America's Future
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Hard Fork:
Big Tech's Tariff Chaos + A.I. 2027 + Llama Drama
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Great Chat:
The bull case for domestic manufacturing
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.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Why DOGE is killing the agency that keeps banks from ripping you off
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Lenny's Podcast:
OpenAI's CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:10 AM ET, November 17, 2021.

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

Ax Sharma / BleepingComputer:
Bloomberg:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: