Facebook Adding Features to Messenger and Instagram; TSMC Building Chip Plant in Arizona; Apple Trademarks May Reveal MacOS 12 Name; Trump Kills His Blog

Facebook is adding multiplayer AR to video calls in Messenger and Instagram. Think of the craziness that will reign when people in a game or chat start sharing the effects. By the way, cnet.com notes that none of the effects are actually new…but the sharing part and in gam part is. Expect some new material though…as Facebook is opening things to creators. Some are speculating that Facebook, via its Oculus division, will be adding hardware to that line that will support the expanded feature set in Messenger and Instagram.

TSMC is building a semiconductor plant in Arizona. Considering the chip shortage that has been raging since the pandemic, and the always present threat from China to Taiwan, this has to be considered a good thing. Reuters.com reports that TSMC expects to be building 5 nanometer chips there by 2024. Intel is also building 2 plants in Arizona, and TSMC plans up to 6 in the next 10-15 years. Samsung is also in the mix to be building in the US. 

It is always a big deal…at least until Apple actually releases an operating system update, then the name of the thing generally recedes, and we all call it macOS 12 (which is the upcoming version.) 9to5mac.com says that, after poring over trademarks for the OS, it looks like it will be either Monterey or Mammoth. Apple trademarked a number of area names from California in 2013-14. We already have seen Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, and Big Sur. I’m betting on Monterey. World Wide Developers Conference starts next week…virtually again. We will know soon about this and what host of features Cupertino has for Mac users that upgrade.

The blog ‘From the Desk of Donald J. Trump’ is dead. According to CNBC, quoting Trump aide Jason Miller, it was mainly intended as a backup to being kicked off Facebook permanently. The Facebook Oversight Board punted, and threw that decision back to Facebook. The Ex-president’s advisors must feel that Zuckerberg and company will allow him back on the platform by year’s end. Miller claims there is something else in the works. As engadget.com notes…’There’s always podcasts and TikTok…’