Techmeme
September 29, 2022, 4:30 PM

Top News

The Verge:
Google plans to shut down Stadia on January 18, 2023, and will refund hardware, software, and DLC purchases; members of the Stadia team will be reassigned  —  Google is shutting down Stadia, its cloud gaming service.  The service will remain live for players until January 18th, 2023.
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Source: Mark Zuckerberg told staff in a weekly Q&A that Meta will freeze hiring, restructure some teams, and cut budgets across most teams, citing the economy  —  Meta Platforms Inc., the owner of Facebook and Instagram, said it will freeze hiring and restructure some teams in an effort to cut costs and shift priorities.
James Vincent / The Verge:
Meta details its text-to-video AI generator, Make-A-Video, which can produce up to five-second videos without audio; Meta is not giving access to the AI model  —  AI text-to-image generators have been making headlines in recent months, but researchers are already moving on to the next frontier: AI text-to-video generators.
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Meta confirms taking “enforcement actions” against The OG App, which offers ad-free Instagram feeds, as developer UN1feed says Apple removed the App Store app  —  A third-party Instagram app, called “The OG App,” which promised an ad-free feed more like the original Instagram experience …
Reuters:
An investigation shows the CIA failed to secure its messaging system used by Iranian spies, often hidden within websites, leading to capture, torture, and death  —  The spy was minutes from leaving Iran when he was nabbed.  —  Gholamreza Hosseini was at Imam Khomeini Airport in Tehran in late 2010, preparing for a flight to Bangkok.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple VP of Procurement Tony Blevins is leaving, sources say after joking in a viral, September 5 TikTok video that he fondles “big-breasted women” for a living  —  One of Apple Inc.'s most senior executives is leaving after he turned up in a viral video on TikTok making …
Sami Fathi / MacRumors:
An Apple support document and a compliance page reference an “iPhone 14 Max”, suggesting Apple changed the name to iPhone 14 Plus at the last moment  —  Newly discovered references to the iPhone 14 Plus as “iPhone 14 Max” on Apple's website suggest this was the name originally intended …
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft plans to end support for SwiftKey on iOS and delist the app from the App Store on October 5; Microsoft will continue to support SwiftKey for Android  —  Questions about what's going on with Microsoft's support of the predictive SwifKey keyboard app for iOS have been bubbling up over the past few weeks.
Barbara Ortutay / Associated Press:
Amnesty International: Meta's algorithms “proactively amplified and promoted content” on Facebook that incited violent hatred against the Rohingya in Myanmar  —  With roosters crowing in the background as he speaks from the crowded refugee camp in Bangladesh that's been his home since 2017 …
Clothilde Goujard / Politico:
Doreen Bogdan-Martin, the US candidate for secretary general of the UN's International Telecommunications Union, beats Russia's candidate by 139 to 25 votes  —  BUCHAREST — A top U.S. official won a massive majority to lead the United Nations agency that sets global standards for telecoms and tech infrastructure.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Researchers detail Chaos, a new cross-platform malware that infected a wide range of Linux and Windows devices, including routers, FreeBSD boxes, and servers  —  Small office routers?  FreeBSD machines?  Enterprise servers?  Chaos infects them all.  —  Researchers have revealed a never …
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Google announces new Maps features, including the ability to visually soar over some areas, 250 more landmark views, enriched neighborhood info, and AR search  —  Google is gearing up to launch several new updates for Maps in the coming months, the company announced today at its Search On event.
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Report: corporate expense management tool TripActions, valued at $7.25B in October 2021, confidentially filed for a US IPO in Q2 2023, seeking a $12B valuation  —  TripActions is said to have filed confidentially to go public in the third quarter of next year at a $12 billion valuation.
Morgan Meaker / Wired:
A look at Botometer, which claims to identify the likelihood that a Twitter account is a bot and has been cited by Elon Musk's lawyers in the Twitter lawsuit  —  In the battle over Twitter's future, the number of bots on the platform is a key issue.  Problem is, nobody knows how to count them.

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Earlier Picks

Spencer Soper / Bloomberg: