Techmeme
November 19, 2021, 8:10 AM

Top News

Abram Brown / Forbes:
ConstitutionDAO loses Sotheby's US Constitution auction to an undisclosed winner's $43.2M bid, after crowdfunding over $40M  —  This story has been updated to reflect the full price that the Constitution sold for after all auction fees.  —  A rare copy of the U.S. Constitution sold …
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 …
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
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
Shannon Bond / NPR:
Meta says it's looking at how users from marginalized communities experience its products and releases a paper on changes to how it uses US demographic data  —  The parent company of Facebook and Instagram is looking into whether its platforms treat users differently based on race …
The Information:
Sources: Facebook is offering musicians and celebrities, via production companies, payments to host Live Audio Rooms; source says up to $50K per session  —  Facebook is offering to pay musicians and other celebrities tens of thousands of dollars to host sessions on its new live audio feature …
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 …
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
MediaTek announces the Dimensity 9000 mobile chip, which uses TSMC's 4nm process and supports 5G without the faster mmWave standard, WiFi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.3  —  MediaTek's new SoC is its most powerful yet  —  MediaTek has just announced its latest flagship processor: the Dimensity 9000 …
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 …
Henry Powderly / Search Engine Land:
Twitter quietly updates its developer guidelines to say AMP support will be phased out by Q4; some publishers have reported months of lower Twitter referrals  —  With social media referrals to AMP pages cut down by the change, the reasons for supporting AMP are getting fewer.
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.

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Earlier Picks

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