Techmeme
December 1, 2021, 1:05 PM

Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft announces Teams Essentials, a $4/month standalone version of Teams for small businesses with a simplified UI, focus on meetings, and no Office apps  —  This standalone version of Teams is even more of a Zoom competitor  —  Microsoft is creating its first standalone version of Microsoft Teams for small businesses.
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Jack Dorsey joins other tech leaders who seem to have grown tired of managing their platforms, amid increasing political controversy and hard-to-fix problems  —  Jack Dorsey, who is stepping down after six years as Twitter's chief executive, is one of the tech leaders who seem to have grown tired of managing their empires.
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, with improved camera and AI processing and up to 20% better performance and 30% better power efficiency over Snapdragon 888  —  Faster performance, better cameras, improved AI, and more  —  Qualcomm has a new flagship smartphone processor …
Kris Holt / Engadget:
Twitter bans sharing private images and videos without consent, with exceptions for newsworthiness and public figures, and will remove content that users report  —  Twitter has expanded its private information policy to include media, banning users from sharing photos or videos of a private individual without their permission.
Bloomberg:
Sources: China plans to ban companies from going public on foreign markets through variable interest entities, closing a loophole used by its tech companies  —  China is planning to ban companies from going public on foreign stock markets through variable interest entities …
Robin Pogrebin / New York Times:
A look at Particle, founded by an ex-Christie's exec and others, which plans to split Banksy's Love Is in the Air into 10,000 pieces to be sold as NFTs  —  A former Christie's executive has joined cryptocurrency experts to create a company that purchases art and sells the fragments as NFTs.
Stacy Mitchell / Institute for Local Self-Reliance:
Research: Amazon revenue from third-party sellers will reach $121B in 2021, up from $60B in 2019, as seller fees reach 34%, up from 30% in 2018 and 19% in 2014  —  Amazon's dominance of online retail means that small businesses have little choice but to rely on its site to reach consumers.
Marty Swant / Forbes:
The Facebook Papers offer glimpses into how users perceive Meta's ad products, like the impact of its reaction emojis, and the concerns raised by employees  —  The “Facebook Papers” have been revelatory when it comes to how the company formerly known as Facebook deals with content moderation and a wide variety of other issues.
Annie Njanja / TechCrunch:
Anchor, which offers cloud-based autonomous billing tools for companies, raises a $15M seed led by Rapyd Ventures and others  —  Companies often spend an incommensurate amount of time chasing overdue payments, which distracts them from their core businesses, and brings forth cash flow issues.
More: FinSMEs and CTech
Ross Young / Display Supply Chain Consultants:
Foldable smartphone shipments reached a record 2.6M units in Q3, up 480% YoY, with Samsung accounting for 93% of shipments followed by Huawei at 6%  —  Austin, TX -  —  Q3'21 was a record quarter for foldable smartphone shipments as expected, given the successful launch of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 …
Rest of World:
Crypto trading volume in Indonesia this year reached ~$50B by October, up over 10x YoY, despite the government and the Ulema Council forbidding crypto payments  —  Crypto is booming on the archipelago.  Its proponents aren't who you'd think  —  Ananda Badudu is 32 years old …
Matt Levine / Bloomberg:
The “omicron” crypto token soaring in value following news of the COVID-19 variant is yet another example of how cryptocurrencies create artificial scarcity  —  Also ghost kitchens, call spreads and RugSeekers.  —  Omicron  —  The basic innovation of crypto is the production of artificial scarcity.
Lauren Thomas / CNBC:
Adobe: US consumers spent $10.7B online on Cyber Monday, below expectations and down 1.4% from $10.8B in 2020, as many shoppers returned to physical stores  —  - Consumers logged online Monday and spent $10.7 billion, marking a 1.4% decrease from year-ago levels, according to data from Adobe Analytics.
Jamie Feltham / UploadVR:
Oculus rolls out v35, adding a mixed reality camera feature that requires an iPhone XS or above, Messenger Calling in VR, a new cloud backup system, and more  —  An upcoming update to the Oculus Quest and Meta Quest 2 will add mixed reality capture via iPhone and calling via Messenger, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Tel Aviv-based Frontegg, which helps SaaS companies track user data, raises a $25M Series A led by Insight Partners  —  Frontegg, a Tel Aviv-based startup that provides SaaS companies with the core user management tools they need to build their own services, today announced that it has raised …

Sponsor Posts

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Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
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