What is the Facebook metaverse? Everything you need to know

Tech Insider
A person wearing virtual reality glasses gestures next to a person in a black shirt that reads 'Meta House'
A guest interacts in Metaverse during Meta House at Miami Art Week on December 03, 2022 in Miami, Florida.

Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Meta

  • Facebook rebranded to Meta in 2021 to go all in on its metaverse.
  • The metaverse platform, called Horizon, began testing in 2020.
  • Today you can access it from a Meta VR headset. Opinions of the metaverse are divided.

When Facebook changed its name to Meta i

Mark Thompson, former New York Times Company and BBC exec, expected to serve as the next CEO of CNN after Chris Licht's epic PR fail, according to new report

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President and CEO of the New York Times Company Mark Thompson speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2017 at Pier 36 on May 15, 2017 in New York City.
President and CEO of the New York Times Company Mark Thompson speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2017 at Pier 36 on May 15, 2017 in New York City.

Noam Galai/Getty Images for TechCrunch

  • Puck reported CNN has tapped Mark Thompson to step in as CEO and chairman.
  • Thompson formerly served as CEO of the New York Times Company and director general at the BBC.
  • The news comes after Chris Licht

Google leaked Google’s flagship Pixel 8 Pro, again

The Verge
An illustration of the Google logo.
Illustration: The Verge

Continuing the storied tradition of Google’s Pixel devices being some of the most-leaked hardware ever, the as-yet-unannounced Pixel 8 Pro has popped up on a Google Store page. @Android_Setting on Twitter / X pointed out the image on a page promoting Google’s subscriptions and services (Pixel Pass is not among them), showing a man taking a call on a

Colin Huang, the founder of the company that owns Chinese shopping app Temu, got $4.3 billion richer after earnings smashed analysts' expectations

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Colin Huang Pinduoduo
Founded by Colin Huang (center, in black), Temu-owner PDD was went public on the Nasdaq in 2018.

Visual China Group/Getty Images

  • The founder of Temu owner PDD saw his net worth jump $4.3 billion in one day, per Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.
  • Colin Huang's fortune was boosted by a 15% surge in PDD shares after a bumper second-quarter earnings.
  • Huang is now worth $32.8 billion, making him the 41st

It's doubtful that Silicon Valley billionaires could pull off building a new city from scratch in a remote California farmland anytime soon, developer says

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Entrepreneur Marc Andreessen speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2016 at Pier 48 on September 13, 2016 in San Francisco, California.
Marc Andreessen

Steve Jennings/Getty Images

  • Silicon Valley billionaires buying up land in Solano County, California, could face big hurdles.
  • Local ordinances, environmental rules, and swirling federal questions could slow their roll.
  • In 2017, Flannery Associates pitched an idea to create a new, walkable city in Solano County.

The conglomerate of Silicon Valley billionaires buying up land in a

A Russian police lieutenant colonel was killed by a drone while mowing his lawn on his day off, local reports say

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Broken windows of a damaged residential building is seen after shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the town of Shebekino, Belgorod Region, Russia on June 21, 2023.
Broken windows of a damaged residential building is seen after shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the town of Shebekino, Belgorod Region, Russia on June 21, 2023.

Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

  • A senior Russian police officer was killed by a drone while mowing his lawn on Saturday, reports say.
  • Identified as Alexey Ch., the man worked in Russia's anti-corruption service, Baza

A sunken World War 1-era wooden ship potentially the size of a football field was discovered in a Texas river by a man on a jet ski after severe drought revealed the wreckage

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The wreckage found by Bill Milner in the Neches River; an example of a wooden boat produced under the Emergency Fleet Corporation in World War 1.
The wreckage found by Bill Milner in the Neches River; a wooden boat produced under the Emergency Fleet Corporation in World War 1.

Bill Milner/Ice House Museum

  • Bill Milner was jet skiing on the Neches River in Texas when he came across a ship wreck.
  • The wreckage turned out to belong to a large, wooden ship built during World War 1.
  • The Texas Historical Commission said more than two dozen of these

The Ayaneo Kun nearly doubles the Steam Deck’s battery for nearly twice the price

The Verge

The Steam Deck’s biggest weakness is battery life — and yet somehow, every challenger has failed to raise that bar. The Ayaneo 2 showed us that AMD’s Ryzen 6800U wasn’t ready to compete; the Asus ROG Ally revealed that AMD’s Z1 Extreme couldn’t pull ahead if Asus insisted on matching the Steam Deck’s 40 watt-hour battery pack.

But Ayaneo may have an answer: it’s stuffing a 75 watt