Techmeme
September 12, 2022, 7:30 PM

Top News

The Verge:
Sources: Google canceled the next version of its Pixelbook laptop slated for 2023 and dissolved the team building it, as part of recent cost-cutting measures  —  Google is getting out of the laptop game  —  Google has canceled the next version of its Pixelbook laptop and dissolved the team responsible for building it.
David Pierce / The Verge:
iOS 16 review: lock screen widgets, while not interactive, are an instant upgrade and the myriad other changes make the iPhone more functional and easier to use  —  The story of iOS 16 is all the things that your phone does when you're not using it.  Apple has been saying for years that we need …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
A Facebook user shares a video of a “Meta Quest Pro” VR headset, claiming Meta left the device, labeled “Not for resale - engineering sample”, in a hotel room  —  A prototype of Meta's VR headset has surfaced  —  Images and, later, a video of a “Meta Quest Pro” …
Wall Street Journal:
Internal Meta research: Instagram users spend 17.6M hours/day on Reels vs. 197.8M hours/day on TikTok; ~1/3 of Reels are recycled posts from another platform  —  Reels faces formidable competition from the leading short-video platform; creators follow the views
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Starbucks announces Starbucks Odyssey, combining the Starbucks Rewards loyalty program with an NFT community built on the Polygon blockchain, launching in 2023  —  Starbucks is today officially introducing Starbucks Odyssey, launching later this year — the coffee chain's first foray into building with web3 technology.
Hartley Charlton / MacRumors:
The new Apple Watches' S8 chip appears to have the same CPU as the S6 and S7, which may explain why Apple has lately only used the S5 or earlier for comparisons  —  The S8 chip in the Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch Ultra, and second-generation Apple Watch SE features the same CPU as the S6 and S7 chips …
Ashlee Vance / Bloomberg:
A look at Aalyria, founded by Google veterans to develop a high-speed network connecting satellites, planes, and more using laser tech from the Loon moonshot  —  In an earlier period of its history, Google became famous for pursuing a range of long-shot projects, such as space elevators, as well as kites that doubled as wind turbines.
Harry McCracken / Fast Company:
In an interview, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan details the company's decision to rebrand Zoom Chat as Zoom Team Chat, seeking to better compete with Slack, Teams, and Meet  —  “Zoom is sort of like a verb when it comes to videoconferencing, right?”  —  That's Eric Yuan, the founder and CEO of Zoom …
Andy Robinson / Video Games Chronicle:
Nintendo says Splatoon 3 for Switch sold a record 3.45M copies in Japan in its first three days, nearly 600K above Animal Crossing: New Horizons' first week  —  Splatoon 3 has smashed Nintendo Switch software launch records in Japan, the company has announced.
Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE:
Meta plans to give control of its PyTorch AI framework to the Linux Foundation's new PyTorch Foundation that includes AMD, AWS, Google, Meta, Azure, and Nvidia  —  Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc. announced today that it's handing over control of the popular PyTorch artificial intelligence platform …
Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
Twitter rejects Elon Musk's claim that a $7.75M severance payment to Peiter Zatko violated the acquisition deal terms, ahead of a September 13 shareholder vote  —  - Twitter said Monday payments to a whistleblower did not breach any of its obligations under the $44 billion acquisition proposed by Elon Musk …

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Earlier Picks

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Jack Stebbins / CNBC:
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