Techmeme
August 15, 2022, 8:25 PM

Top News

New York Times:
a16z invests in Adam Neumann's residential real estate management startup Flow, sources say ~$350M at a $1B+ valuation, the firm's largest-ever individual check  —  WeWork's founder is back with a billion-dollar venture.  —  WeWork's founder is going residential
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Android 13 begins rolling out today to Google's Pixel phones, earlier in the year than the previous two Android annual updates  —  Google's major OS update is a little early this year  —  This year's major Android update, Android 13, is officially releasing today for Google's Pixel phones, the search giant has announced.
New York Times:
A look at the rise of digital productivity monitoring for white collar jobs in the US, sometimes used to assign workers scores, determine pay, and more  —  Across industries and incomes, more employees are being tracked, recorded and ranked.  What is gained, companies say, is efficiency and accountability.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple sets a return-to-office deadline of September 5, for Tuesdays, Thursdays, and a regular third day that will be determined by individual teams  —  Apple Inc. has set a Sept. 5 deadline for corporate employees to be in the office at least three days a week after delaying …
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Snap says its Snapchat+ subscription, launched in June, now has 1M+ users globally and adds features, including priority Story replies to celebs  —  It's not going to make much of a dent to offset Snap's stalling ad business, but the company is touting that it has signed up more than 1 million subscribers …
Reuters:
Walmart partners with Paramount to include the $4.99/month ad-supported tier of the Paramount+ streaming service as part of its Walmart+ subscription  —  U.S. retailer Walmart Inc (WMT.N) on Monday struck a deal with Paramount Global (PARA.O) to offer Paramount+ streaming service to the subscribers …
James Vincent / The Verge:
TikTok rolls out a text-to-image “AI greenscreen”, letting users create a basic background for videos from a text prompt  —  The app's ‘AI greenscreen’ filter shows text-to-image has gone mainstream  —  Text-to-image AI systems are booming in both ability and popularity right now …
Bloomberg:
A judge orders Twitter to give Elon Musk documents from a former Twitter executive Musk said was a key witness but denies Musk's similar request for 21 others  —  Twitter Inc. was ordered to hand over files from its former consumer product head to Elon Musk on spam and bot accounts the billionaire …
More: Reuters
Lucy Harley-McKeown / The Block:
Galaxy Digital terminates its $1.2B acquisition of crypto custodian BitGo, announced in May 2021, after the service failed to provide audited statements  —  - Galaxy Digital announced on Monday that it would terminate its deal with crypto custodian BitGo, which had been announced in May 2021.
Bobby Kent / GameLuster:
Court docs in Brazil show Microsoft sold approximately 58.5M Xbox One units in total, or half of the PS4's 117.2M sales; Microsoft has long hidden sales figures  —  A high-profile case is ongoing in Brazil, as Microsoft attempts to defend its Activision Blizzard acquisition from CADE, the Brazilian competition authority.
Jen Wieczner / New York Magazine:
An in-depth look at the fall of Three Arrows Capital, led by Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, which built a solid reputation only to vaporize billions of dollars  —  Everyone trusted the two guys at Three Arrows Capital.  They knew what they were doing — right?  —  The boat was a beauty of a thing …
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
A “jailbreak” for John Deere tractors, helping farmers modify and repair them, highlights issues with securing farm equipment and the right-to-repair debate  —  A hacker has formulated an exploit that provides root access to two popular models of the company's farm equipment.

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