Techmeme
November 18, 2021, 4:20 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is accelerating the development of a fully autonomous electric car, after hitting a car processor milestone, with plans to debut it by 2025  —  - Company looks to refocus project on self-driving capabilities  — New car chief Kevin Lynch pushing for debut as early as 2025
Will Evans / Wired:
Internal docs and sources detail Amazon's careless handling of its retail customer data, including letting some low-level staff snoop on celebrity purchases  —  Voyeurs.  Sabotaged accounts.  Backdoor schemes.  For years, the retail giant has handled your information less carefully than it handles your packages.
Mark Di Stefano / The Information:
Memo: Tim Cook tells employees that Apple will let them work remotely for up to four weeks per year and sets a February 1 return to office goal  —  Apple will let employees work for up to four weeks remotely each year as the iPhone giant prepares for the company to gradually return to offices in 2022 …
Michael del Castillo / Forbes:
Winklevoss' cryptocurrency exchange Gemini raises $400M led by Morgan Creek Digital at a $7.1B valuation  —  After seven years of funding their Gemini cryptocurrency empire out of pocket, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are in the process of signing the last documents on their first round of capital …
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
In a staff email, Phil Spencer says he's evaluating Xbox's relationship with Activision Blizzard and will make adjustments; PlayStation head sent a similar note  —  Microsoft Corp.'s head of Xbox said he's “evaluating all aspects of our relationship with Activision Blizzard …
Shannon Liao / Washington Post:
Wall Street Journal:
A coalition of nine state AGs, including those from MA, NY, NJ, FL, and CA, is investigating how Instagram attracts and affects young people  —  Move raises pressure on parent company Meta Platforms, formerly called Facebook, over the potential harms to its users
Omar Abdel-Baqui / Wall Street Journal:
If ConstitutionDAO wins Thursday's US Constitution auction, it faces practical issues about how to pay, who picks it up, ownership, and where to display it  —  A group of friends in the cryptocurrency world are repurposing digital tools to make a run at a rare analog document up for auction Thursday
Amelia Lucas / CNBC:
Starbucks and Amazon partner to launch Starbucks Pickup with Amazon Go in Manhattan using Amazon's Just Walk Out tech  —  - Starbucks is opening a pick-up cafe in midtown Manhattan with Amazon that uses the retail giant's cashierless technology.  — It's the latest step in Starbucks' strategy …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify expands real-time lyrics to all users globally in partnership with Musixmatch, after initially launching in 26 markets  —  After years of ignoring consumer demand for in-app lyrics, particularly in the U.S., Spotify announced today it will make a new Lyrics feature available to all global users …
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Grammarly, which helps users improve their writing with its AI assistant, raises $200M at a $13B valuation  —  Grammarly, the popular auto-editing tool for writing, has raised $200 million in funding at a $13 billion valuation from new investors including Baillie Gifford and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, among others.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Paytm falls 27% in its trading debut in India, giving it a market valuation of $14.9B, after raising $2.5B in its IPO  —  Indian fintech giant Paytm, backed by SoftBank and Alibaba, lost more than 27% in its first day of trading Thursday.  The valuation of the firm, which raised $2.5 billion …
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A: Brian Chesky on how he restructured Airbnb during the pandemic, running a public company, crypto, the metaverse, working with Jony Ive's LoveFrom, and more  —  Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky prides himself on thinking very differently than other CEOs, and his answers to the Decoder questions …
Stefanie Marotta / Bloomberg:
Canada arrests a teenager for allegedly stealing $36.5M in crypto from a US victim using SIM swapping, the largest reported single-person crypto theft  —  - Case marks the biggest crypto theft reported by one person  — Police identified the alleged thief through a gaming username
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Nexar, which is developing an analytics service for car dash cam footage, raises a $53M Series D led by Qumra Capital, bringing its total funding to $150M  —  Nexar, a startup developing an analytics service on top of car dash cam footage, today announced that it raised $53 million …
Byron Tau / Wall Street Journal:
In a letter to Sen. Wyden, data broker Mobilewalla says it was the source of some data used by DHS, IRS, and US military for warrantless tracking of devices  —  Mobilewalla CEO writes to U.S. senator investigating location brokers: ‘Selling mobile device data for use by law enforcement agencies is not our business model’
Henry Powderly / Search Engine Land:
Twitter quietly updates AMP guidelines on its developer site to say AMP support will be phased out by Q4; some publishers report sharp Twitter referral declines  —  With social media referrals to AMP pages cut down by the change, the reasons for supporting AMP are getting fewer.
Wall Street Journal:
Ford partners with GlobalFoundries to develop chips, but offers few concrete details  —  Stung by semiconductor shortage, Detroit's two biggest car companies are looking to align with computer-chip makers to develop and potentially manufacture chips  —  Detroit's two biggest auto makers …

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Ian Sherr / CNET: