Open-internet advocates are breathing a sigh of relief after a recent election for the International Telecommunications Union’s top leadership.

From templates to online hosting, these services help show potential employers just how great you are.

ProPublica: Analysis reveals how Google’s ad business funnels revenue to prolific purveyors of health, election, and climate disinfo in Europe, Latin America, and Africa  —  Google is funneling revenue to some of the web’s most prolific purveyors of false information in Europe, Latin America and Africa, a ProPublica investigation has found.

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal: Amid a downturn, tech companies may shift their focus from “gee-whiz” projects, like self-driving cars and metaverses, to truly useful products that make money  —  History shows that downturns are when the industry shifts focus from flashy novelties to things that are truly useful

Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire: Report: Amazon laid off ~150 people, or 50% of its workforce, at Amp, an app that lets DJs host live “radio shows”, take calls, and play Amazon Music tracks  —  In-depth Amazon coverage from the tech giant’s hometown, including e-commerce, AWS, Amazon Prime, Alexa, logistics, devices, and more.

Startups like Meta and Twitter serve as digital infrastructure, but aren’t accountable to users. Some startups are trying to chart a new way to exit that focuses on community—not shareholders.

Plus: The New York Post gets hacked, a huge stalkerware network is exposed, and the US claims China interfered with its Huawei probe.

Plus: Subscription services are growing more expensive, the new Call of Duty game discs are nearly empty, and plastic waste is piling up.

Jared Council / Forbes: New Orleans-based Resilia, which sells software to help nonprofits manage their operations, raised a $35M Series B, bringing its total funding to ~$50M  —  Sevetri Wilson is not your average tech company founder.  She’s a Black woman, she has no coding experience, no cofounders …

Yashu Gola / Cointelegraph: Dogecoin surged by nearly 75% on Saturday after Elon Musk took control of Twitter, its biggest daily gain since April 2021, as it rallied 150% since October 25  —  DOGE price could drop 60% by the end of this year as it reaches its most overbought level since April 2021.  —  […]

New York Times: Sources: Elon Musk plans to begin layoffs at Twitter as soon as Saturday, to take place before November 1, when staff were scheduled to receive stock grants  —  The billionaire planned to begin layoffs as soon as Saturday, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Though it’s from a lesser-known brand, this TV takes its place along TCL and Vizio for offering the best value for its price.

The traditional practice of mixing crops was nearly wiped out by industrial agriculture, but maslins are poised for a comeback.

Slap on some protection and grab a charger for your very expensive investment.

The Intercept: Internal Iranian carrier documents detail SIAM, an Iranian government web program for surveilling the country’s cellphone users and disrupting communications  —  As furious anti-government protests swept Iran, the authorities retaliated with both brute force and digital repression.

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Google acquired Alter, an AI avatar startup that helps creators and brands express their virtual identity; source: the deal closed two months ago for ~$100M  —  Google has acquired Alter, an artificial intelligence (AI) avatar startup that helps creators and brands express their virtual identity …

Washington Post: A look at the US government’s handwringing over TikTok and national security concerns, as China’s government seeks to protect its powerful app and algorithms  —  The wildly popular app’s link to China has sparked fears over propaganda and privacy.  It’s also exposed America’s failure to safeguard the web.

What’s next for the social network is anyone’s guess—but here’s what to watch as you wade through the privacy and security morass.

Get cameras, headphones, and powerful laptops before Halloween even arrives.

Discord, Mastodon, and other services are bustling as Twitter fans make backup plans for their online social lives.

Ismail Shakil / Reuters: Court filing: Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth, Within CEO Chris Milk, and others to testify in the FTC case against Meta’s acquisition of Within  —  Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg will testify in a case by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) …

Financial Times: eMarketer: US advertisers are on track to spend $65.3B on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks in 2022, up 3.6% YoY, which is ~10x slower than in 2021  —  A decade-long era of breakneck growth in social media advertising has come to an abrupt halt.  Who killed the boom?

CNBC: General Motors suspends its paid advertising on Twitter as the car company evaluates the “direction of the platform under their new ownership”  —  A General Motors sign is seen during an event on January 25, 2022 in Lansing, Michigan.  – General Motors will create 4,000 new jobs …

On a warm, sunny afternoon last Thursday, MIT’s community gathered under a tent on Hockfield Court to meet the Institute’s next president, Sally Kornbluth. Amid a festive, celebratory atmosphere that included live music and fall treats, Kornbluth soaked in MIT’s culture; chatted with faculty, students, and staff; heard from members of MIT leadership; and took […]

Five reasons people might be hesitant — and how to address their concerns.

Researchers who studied the Italian film industry identified four key factors.

To overcome challenges of scale, the company pairs new and veteran suppliers in formal mentoring relationships.

The entrepreneur’s laundry list of ideas includes scrapping content moderation, charging subscription fees, and even branching out beyond social media.

Ford and Volkswagen sank nearly $4 billion into developer Argo. Now, amid wider signs of slow progress in autonomous tech, they’re shutting it down.

The new top-end tablets from the company hardly offer much new, but they’re still the best if you don’t mind the high price.

Bloomberg: Since its NYSE debut in November 2013, Twitter stock has grown 8.4% annually on average, below the S&P 500’s 11% and Nasdaq 100’s 15%, due to slow user growth  —  Elon Musk’s buyout marks the end of nine years of public trading in Twitter Inc., which debuted with a bang but failed to match […]

Kate Conger / New York Times: Elon Musk takes Twitter private, merging the company with X Holdings, delisting from NYSE, dissolving the board, and moving to cash-based employee compensation  —  The social media company went public in 2013.  But Elon Musk is taking it private as part of his acquisition of the firm.

Dylan Patel / SemiAnalysis: A look at the ongoing Qualcomm-Arm legal dispute, as Qualcomm claims Arm plans to stop licensing its CPUs to semiconductor companies after 2024  —  No More External GPU, NPU, or ISP’s Allowed In Arm-Based SOCs  —  The Qualcomm-Arm saga is epic and there is a new massive update in the case.

The world’s largest digital camera for astronomy is taller than a car, has as many pixels as 266 iPhones and will, over the course of the next 10 years, help researchers study billions of galaxies

Analyzing the genetic mutations linked with diseases such as cancer has yielded many potential drug targets. However, a significant number of these proteins are considered “undruggable,” mainly because their structure is too floppy for any kind of small-molecule drug to bind to it. Angela Koehler, an associate professor of biological engineering at MIT, has made […]

If the crypto enthusiasts are right, the next decade will see billions of people begin using applications built off distributed, user-owned blockchains. The new paradigm has been dubbed Web 3. But Web 3 still has some significant challenges to overcome if it’s going to replace the digital world as we know it. Blockchain networks, for […]

Get cameras, headphones, and powerful laptops before Halloween even arrives.

Load up your iPhone 14, iPhone 13, or iPhone 12 with a wallet, power bank, or even a webcam mount.

These are some of our favorite stands, cases, keyboards, and Pencils no matter which iPad you have.

Andrew Orr / AppleInsider: Apple reports a record $11.5B in Mac revenue for Q4, up 25% YoY, and sets “a quarterly record for upgraders”, but expects a YoY decline in Q1 2023  —  Mac sales were strong during Apple’s September quarter amid a declining PC market, but the company expects Mac revenue to slow down […]

Harmeet Singh Walia / Counterpoint Research: Global smartphone shipments fell 12% YoY to 301M units in Q3 2022, the lowest Q3 level since 2014; Apple was the only top-five brand to grow YoY, up 2%  —  – The global smartphone market declined by 12% YoY even as it grew by 2% QoQ to reach 301 […]

Yousef Saba / Reuters: Classera, a San Francisco-based ed tech startup focused on the Middle East and Africa, raised a $40M Series A led by Sanabil, which is run by Saudi Arabia’s PIF  —  Classera, an education technology company headquartered in San Francisco, said on Thursday it had raised $40 million from investors …

A flying robot can be used to scare away flocks of birds in fields. RobotFalcon resembles a peregrine falcon in size, shape and colouration.

On Oct. 12, MIT mechanical engineering alumnus Vishnu Jayaprakash SM ’19, PhD ’22 was named the first-place winner in the graduate category of the Collegiate Inventors Competition. The annual competition, which is organized by the National Inventors Hall of Fame, celebrates college and university student inventors. Jayaprakash won for his pesticide innovation AgZen-Cloak, which he […]

Frank Sidney Jones, professor emeritus in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), passed away on Aug. 28 at the age of 93. In 1971, Jones was named Ford Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning, becoming the first African American to be tenured at MIT. He also taught courses in civil engineering. From his […]

Sponsor content from Siemens.

How firms can fight the temptation.

Four traps that hold leaders back.

Industry players are working on standardized swappable batteries that could shake up everything from garden trimmers to EV rickshaws.

This week, we list all the ways plastic is ruining our planet and making us sick, then come up with some ideas for reversing the damage.