Techmeme
November 18, 2021, 8:00 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
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:
Will Evans / Wired:
Sources and internal docs 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 Apple employees they can 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 twins' 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 …
Wall Street Journal:
A bipartisan coalition of state AGs from CA, FL, KY, MA, NE, NJ, NY, TN, and VT 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
David McCabe / New York Times:
Local US governments, including in Texas and Arizona, are offering chipmakers deals to build plants, seeking to capitalize on the semiconductor shortage  —  Many local governments see a silver lining in the shortage of semiconductor chips that has contributed to a slowdown in the global economy.
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 …
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 …
Byron Tau / Wall Street Journal:
In a letter to Sen. Wyden, data broker Mobilewalla says it was the source of some data used by the 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’
Bryan Walsh / Axios:
OpenAI makes its API for GPT-3 generally available in supported countries, eliminating the waiting list for access  —  The artificial intelligence research company OpenAI will eliminate the waiting list for access to the API of its natural language processing program (NLP) GPT-3.
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
Richard Waters / Financial Times:
During its Q3 earnings call, Nvidia said the FTC “expressed concerns” about its Arm acquisition, adding to regulatory pressure from the UK and the EU  —  Chipmaker discloses FTC highlighted potential objections, adding to UK and European scrutiny of the deal
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 …

Sponsor Posts

Termina:
AI Powered Diligence at Scale  —  VCs and founders deploy Termina AI Scans on >12% of all known series A+ deals to uncover hidden risks and opportunities.  Explore how you too can invest and build better companies with AI.
Intel:
Intel Delivers powerful CPUs for AI and Networking  —  With the onset of AI, businesses demand powerful and efficient CPUs.  Explore new Intel Xeon 6 processors, for the broadest set of workloads with leadership performance and lower TCO.
Zoho:
The future of remote AR support: Why Zoho Lens is the ideal choice  —  Imagine this: Your field technician is on site assessing malfunctioning heavy machinery.  Instead of waiting for an expert to travel to the location …
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:
E2EE For All!
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Why Trump can't be trusted with Congress' new anti-deepfake bill
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Lenny's Podcast:
Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months--one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder & CEO of StackBlitz)
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.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen Breaks Down the Global Impact of Trump's New Tariffs
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Generative Now:
Dan Shipper: The First MultiModal Media Company
A podcast from Lightspeed dedicated to highlighting the stories, strategies and insights behind today's most exciting AI companies.
Subscribe to Generative Now.
Spotlight On:
Nebius's Arkady Volozh on What it Takes to Build Infrastructure Needed for the AI Era
A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.
Subscribe to Spotlight On.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:00 PM ET, November 18, 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

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch: