Techmeme
December 7, 2021, 6:55 PM

Top News

Richard Lawler / The Verge:
An AWS outage that began around 10:45am ET has led to disruptions for many services including Disney+, Tinder, Roku, Coinbase, Cash App, Amazon Music, and Venmo  —  Amazon says it is working toward a solution  —  Problems with some Amazon Web Services cloud servers are causing slow loading …
Lauren Kaori Gurley / VICE:
Delivery companies and hundreds of Amazon workers say the company's Flex and Dolphin apps for logistics and time tracking are down, halting some deliveries  —  There's a mix of frustration and joy from workers as AWS outages cause chaos with Amazon's delivery infrastructure during its busy season.
Wayne Ma / The Information:
Sources: Tim Cook brokered a secret five-year deal with China in 2016, paving the way for Apple's success by promising to invest $275B+ in the country's economy  —  Interviews and internal Apple documents provide a behind-the-scenes look at how the company made concessions to Beijing and won key legal exemptions.
Andrew Hayward / Decrypt:
Ubisoft will add NFT items into its games, starting with Ghost Recon Breakpoint on the Tezos blockchain, becoming the first major gaming company to do so  —  In brief  — Major game publisher Ubisoft will implement in-game NFT items into its games, starting with Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint.
David McCabe / New York Times:
Ahead of a congressional hearing, Adam Mosseri outlines Instagram parental controls coming in March, including monitoring time spent and bulk deleting posts  —  Adam Mosseri, the head of the company, is expected to face questions from lawmakers this week about whether social media harms children.
Jamie Tarabay / Bloomberg:
Google sues two Russians it claims help run a botnet that has infected 1M+ devices and uses command-and-control server addresses stored on Bitcoin's blockchain  —  - Complaint says the two created a sophisticated ‘botnet’  — Glupteba sells stolen logins, credit cards, Google says
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
The Senate confirms Jessica Rosenworcel to lead the FCC, the first female chair in the agency's history, in a 68 to 31 vote  —  She will be the first female chair in FCC history  —  On Tuesday, the Senate voted 68 to 31 to confirm Jessica Rosenworcel's re-appointment to the Federal …
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Hands-on with Snap Spectacles, announced in May: lightweight, bold design, and impressive AR, but overheating and a 30-minute battery is why they aren't on sale  —  Mainstream AR glasses are still years away  —  It doesn't take long to realize why Snap's first true AR glasses aren't for sale.
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Stan Chudnovsky, Meta's Messenger chief who is also leading the integration of Meta's messaging services, will leave the company, plans to stay until Q2 2022  —  The executive has been overseeing efforts to integrate the company's messaging services  —  Stan Chudnovsky, the Meta Platforms …
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
Twitter acquires messaging app Quill, which will shut down and delete all user data on December 11 after launching in February to challenge Slack  —  In February 9to5Mac reported on the launch of a focus-focused Slack competitor called Quill.  Today Twitter is bringing Quill under its wing …
Cho Mu-Hyun / ZDNet:
Samsung merges its mobile and consumer electronics divisions into one business unit led by JH Han, and names Kyehyun Kyung as the CEO of its semiconductor unit  —  The Galaxy-device maker's smartphone and TV divisions will now be run by a single CEO.  —  Samsung said on Tuesday it has merged …
Axios:
Seventeen groups representing ~150 newspapers quietly filed antitrust lawsuits in the past year against Google and Meta for monopolizing the digital ads market  —  Newspapers all over the country have been quietly filing antitrust lawsuits against Google and Facebook for the past year …
Lauren Thomas / CNBC:
Stitch Fix reports Q1 revenue of $581M vs $571M est. and cuts its revenue outlook for the fiscal year, citing ongoing supply chain pressures; stock drops 15%+  —  - Stitch Fix reported a narrower-than-expected fiscal first-quarter loss and beat analysts' sales expectations.
Tweets: @stevekovach
Packy McCormick / Not Boring:
The allure of speculative Web3 returns is attracting talent that in turn will create opportunities for more people to earn money by doing what they find fun  —  More fun making money, and more money having fun … Today's Not Boring is brought to you by... Mosaic
D. T. Max / New Yorker:
An in-depth look at Welshman James Howells' desperate efforts to excavate his local landfill to recover a hard drive with 8,000 bitcoins mined in 2013  —  For years, a Welshman who threw away the key to his cybercurrency stash has been fighting to excavate the local landfill.
Bloomberg:
A look at the impact of a COVID-19 outbreak at an STMicroelectronics chipmaking factory in Malaysia, as pressure to increase production overrode safety concerns  —  While companies and governments push to keep supply chains running, ordinary people are the ones putting their lives at risk.
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
Microsoft seizes 42 domains allegedly used by a Chinese cyber espionage group that targeted organizations in 29 countries including the US  —  Microsoft said today that its legal team has successfully obtained a court warrant that allowed it to seize 42 domains used by a Chinese cyber-espionage group …
Bloomberg:
NFT data shows price differences based on race and gender; the average minimum sale price of darker-skinned male CryptoPunks trails lighter-skinned ones  —  Price differences based on race and gender are emerging among the CryptoPunk NFTs.  What do the disparities mean?

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