Techmeme
December 7, 2022, 12:25 PM

Top News

Shannon Liao / Washington Post:
Microsoft agrees to a 10-year deal to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo Switch for the first time, pending FTC approval of its Activision deal, but offers no date  —  Microsoft has signed a deal to bring the Activision Blizzard-published Call of Duty franchise to Nintendo for the first time …
Tim Culpan / Bloomberg:
Despite Joe Biden and Tim Cook celebrating TSMC's long-planned Arizona fabs, the tech will be old and the capacity small, a far cry from US chip independence  —  President Joe Biden is so proud of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s new facility that he went to Arizona to celebrate it.
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Financial Times:
Sources: FTX reached late stage negotiations with Taylor Swift for a $100M+ sponsorship deal, supported by Swift fan SBF but opposed by some FTX executives  —  Negotiations between singer-songwriter and Sam Bankman-Fried's crytpo group collapsed this spring
Kalley Huang / New York Times:
Sources: seeking to capitalize on the Twitter chaos, Meta brainstormed product ideas in November like expanding Instagram Notes and building a text-focused app  —  New start-ups and other social platforms sense opportunity as Twitter grapples with changes from Elon Musk, its new owner.
Faiz Siddiqui / Washington Post:
Twitter ads from ~40 major brands including Amazon, Snap, and Uber appeared on the pages of at least two white nationalists, whose accounts Elon Musk restored  —  Ads from dozens of major brands were appearing on white nationalist and extremist accounts  — Ads for more than three dozen …
Bloomberg:
A look at the digital asset diehards at Art Basel Miami Beach, who tried to ignore the fallout from FTX's collapse while FTX merch was hidden away in storage  —  At a dazzling new hotspot in the center of Miami's crypto scene, the remains of Sam Bankman-Fried's collapsed empire are stuffed in trash bags.
William Turton / Bloomberg:
Andrew Romero / 9to5Google:
Telegram partners with Fragment to let users create an anonymous phone number to join the service, removing the need for a SIM card, and adds security features  —  For years, apps like Telegram and Whatsapp have restricted access to users who could sign up using a SIM card and phone number.
Alexandra Bruell / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: The Washington Post is exploring a spinoff or sale of its Arc XP publishing tool, which has ~250 staff globally and may generate $200M+ in ARR by 2027  —  Company has embraced digital experimentation under tech-billionaire owner; spinoff of ‘Arc’ business also possible
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft launches Discord-like communities in Teams for Android and iOS, letting users organize groups with its calendar, meeting, and chat features for free  —  Microsoft is launching a new communities feature for Microsoft Teams today, designed for consumers to use the best parts of Teams free …
Adam James / The Block:
Auditing firm Mazars says Binance's bitcoin reserves have a 101% collateralization ratio, after doing a proof-of-reserves and proof-of-liabilities verification  —  - Mazars concluded that Binance's bitcoin reserves are fully collateralized, following a proof-of-reserves and proof-of-liabilities verification.
Parmy Olson / Bloomberg:
OpenAI's ChatGPT could be a serious threat for Google, offering quick, clear, and comprehensive answers to difficult questions that require no further searches  —  A new chatbot from OpenAI took the internet by storm this week, dashing off poems, screenplays and essay answers that were plastered …
Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk:
Facing a large deficit in its treasury, DeFi protocol Sushi proposes diverting fees from the Kanpai protocol and reduces its runway requirement from $9M to $5M  —  Developers proposed to divert 100% of fees generated on the platform to Sushi's multisig for one year or until new tokenomics are implemented.
Jon Porter / The Verge:
WhatsApp begins rolling out customizable avatars, already available on Facebook and Instagram, letting users set a profile picture or send one of 36 stickers  —  Avatars, the customizable characters that are already available across Meta services like Facebook and Instagram, are officially launching on WhatsApp.
David McCabe / New York Times:
As the FTC prepares to test a novel argument to challenge Meta's $400M Within acquisition, officials expect a loss could push Congress to rewrite antitrust laws  —  As the Federal Trade Commission prepares to face off in court against Meta over a V.R. start-up deal, the agency is testing …
Michael Sheetz / CNBC:
SpaceX announces Starshield, expanding Starlink into military and government applications, initially focusing on imagery, communications, and “hosted payloads”  —  - Elon Musk's SpaceX is expanding its Starlink satellite technology into military applications with a new business line called Starshield.
Deepsekhar Choudhury / Moneycontrol:
Sources: India tells Nick Clegg and other Meta executives to complete takedown requests within an hour and says Google has a higher rate of compliance than Meta  —  Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw also told Meta that it needs more fact-checkers in India in proportion to the country's population …
New York Times:
How Geneva-based VPN startup Proton's ~25 engineers are fighting Russian censorship, a back-and-forth battle since the government blocked Proton in March 2022  —  The cat-and-mouse experience of Proton, a Swiss company, shows what it's like to be targeted by Russian censors — and what it takes to fight back.

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