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(Bonus) Vibe Shift (?) Twitter (Also ?) With @anildash Nov 20, 2022

Show notes

The great Anil Dash joined us to talk about... well, what do you think we talked about? But also, a broader discussion about the crazy year that the tech industry has had.

Fri. 11/18 – Twitter: Not Dead At The Time Of This Posting Nov 18, 2022

Show notes

I’m here with you all as we wait for the end of Twitter together. Unless it doesn’t die. In which case, I dunno. Masa Son is actually personally in hock to the Vision Fund now that all its investments have gone pear shaped. A weird end of an era for Facebook. It’s not about status updates anymore. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

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Thu. 11/17 – A Deepfake Detector Nov 17, 2022

Show notes

The guy who handled the Enron bankruptcy says FTX is the worst he’s ever seen. Xbox gets full Discord integration. Apple’s plans for Major League Soccer are revealed. Evernote finds a forever home. A new Deepfake detector from Intel and supercomputing in the cloud from Microsoft and Nvidia.

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New FTX Boss Condemns Management of the Crypto Exchange During Sam Bankman-Fried's Tenure (CoinDesk)
Built-in Discord voice chat is now rolling out to all Xbox users (Engadget)
Apple Kicks Off Major League Soccer Plans With Pricing & Launch Details (Deadline)
Bending Spoons acquires Evernote, marking the end of an era (TechCrunch)
Google rolls out new features across Maps, Search and Shopping (TechCrunch)
Intel unveils real-time deepfake detector, claims 96% accuracy rate (VentureBeat)
Cloud computing: Microsoft and Nvidia are building a 'massive' AI supercomputer. Here's why (ZDNet)
Microsoft and Nvidia team up to build massive cloud AI supercomputer (SiliconRepublic)

Wed. 11/16 – The Tesla Of Home Appliances Nov 16, 2022

Show notes

Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon chip. DuckDuckGo’s App Tracking blocker but for Android, the latest headlines from the two stories you know we have to hit, and what if I told you there’s a new startup that wants to do for home appliances, what Tesla did for automobiles?

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Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 gives us a glimpse of 2023’s Android flagships (The Verge)
DuckDuckGo’s App Tracking Protection beta is now available to all Android users (The Verge)
Netflix's new feature lets subscribers kick devices off their accounts (TechCrunch)
Musk issues ultimatum to staff: Commit to ‘hardcore’ Twitter or take severance (Washington Post)
Induction cooking heats up with a $20M cash injection for Impulse (TechCrunch)
Protocol, the tech-news focused website, will shutter and lay off its entire staff (CNN Business)

Tue. 11/15 – “An Excel File Full Of The Howling Of Ghosts” Nov 15, 2022

Show notes

If you tell Elon he doesn’t know what he’s doing, you could get fired. Matt Levine looks into the abyss of the FTX balance sheet and finds the abyss staring back at him. Is the Alexa platform in danger? Nike still believes in NFTs. And what it’s actually like to use Apple’s Emergency SOS feature.

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Links:

Musk Publicly Punishes Twitter Engineers Who Call Him Out Online (Bloomberg)
Is Elon Musk’s Twitter about to fall out of the GDPR’s one-stop shop? (TechCrunch)
FTX’s Balance Sheet Was Bad (Bloomberg)
Amazon Is Said to Plan to Lay Off Thousands of Employees (NYTimes)
Nike to Open Its Own Virtual Sneaker Store and Trading Platform (Bloomberg)
Nike Launches Web3 Platform Offering Virtual Apparel and Other NFT-Based Products (CryptoNews)
Here’s what it’s like to use Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellite (The Verge)

Mon. 11/14 – Paging Jonah Hill For The SBF Movie Nov 14, 2022

Show notes

Twitter still lives, at least at the time of this writing. But thousands more contractors have been laid off. CZ wants to start a fund to save crypto projects. Paging Jonah Hill to play SBF in the movie that Michael Lewis is shopping around Hollywood. Meta is exiting the Portal business. And a big review of the Meta Quest Pro is just downright befuddling.

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Twitter reportedly cut thousands of contractors without warning (The Verge)
SpaceX just bought a big ad campaign on Twitter for Starlink (CNBC)
Binance Starts Recovery Fund for Crypto Projects Facing Liquidity Crisis (CoinDesk)
Exclusive: Jeff Bezos says he will give most of his money to charity (CNN Business)
Nearly half of Meta job cuts were in tech, reorg underway - execs say (Reuters)
Meta Quest Pro review: get me out of here (The Verge)

Fri. 11/11 – A Summary Of This Crazy Week Nov 11, 2022

Show notes

Just two big stories, as it’s been all week, but instead of ONLY giving you the latest, I want to try to sum up where I think we’re at as this week ends. What, I think, in the end, actually happened with FTX. And are we SURE Elon isn’t trying to tank Twitter on purpose? And, of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.

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Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

Basically everything on Amazon has become an ad (Vox)
Can Crypto’s Richest Man Stand the Cold? (Bloomberg)
Matter is here, but it’s still a long road to the simple smart home (The Verge)
Twitter alternative: how Mastodon is designed to be “antiviral” (UXCollective)
Unfollow? Block? And who gets custody of the WhatsApp groups? How to break up in the digital age (The Guardian)

Thu. 11/10 – Binance Lets FTX Dangle Nov 10, 2022

Show notes

More twists and turns in the FTX, SBF, CZ saga as the entire crypto sector continues to get rocked. I’d love to tell you what is going on with Twitter’s whole checkmark saga, but I don’t know, Elon doesn’t know, and frankly, by the time you hear this, it’s likely to have changed anyway. GitHub is getting into the voice assistant game. And Amazon becomes the first company to LOSE a Trillion dollars in valuation.

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Wed. 11/09 – CZ & SBF Make FTX Go Boom? Nov 09, 2022

Show notes

The Meta layoffs are here and they’re brutal. But rumors are, TikTok is cutting back also. What even is the new Twitter subscription product at this point? Does anybody know? And if you look at today’s show title, and it’s just a bunch of gibberish, hopefully I can explain the big crypto blowup from yesterday.

Sources:

Links:

Meta confirms 11,000 layoffs, amounting to 13% of its workforce (TechCrunch)
TikTok slashes global revenue targets by at least $2bn (Financial Times)
Twitter’s solution for ruining verification is another check mark (The Verge)
Disney+ reaches 164.2M subscribers as it prepares for ad-supported tier launch (TechCrunch)
The Story of Sam Bankman-Fried’s Backroom Deal With Binance’s CZ (CoinDesk)
Lucas Nuzzi (Twitter Thread)
FTX Venture Investors Fear Total Wipeout in Binance Rescue Deal (The Information)

Tue. 11/08 – FTX: You Ok, Bro? Nov 08, 2022

Show notes

Why has FTX appeared to have halted withdrawals? Innocent explanation, or could we have another big crypto blowup brewing? What if Elon just says, screw it, and puts all of Twitter behind a paywall? What happens if NFT marketplaces stop honoring royalties? And why is Apple having a hard time with its design team?

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