IT teams are hiring more freelancers and slowing recruiting full-time staff; Freelancer.com says software developer job postings rose 54.7% YoY in Q3 2022 (Angus Loten/Wall Street Journal)

Angus Loten / Wall Street Journal:
IT teams are hiring more freelancers and slowing recruiting full-time staff; Freelancer.com says software developer job postings rose 54.7% YoY in Q3 2022  —  New wave of IT freelancers prefer to tackle digital projects, then move on, recruiters say  —  Facing economic headwinds …

Study: Chinese netizens are permitted to air environmental concerns and criticize polluters on social media, resulting in lower emissions from some factories (Coco Liu/Bloomberg)

Coco Liu / Bloomberg:
Study: Chinese netizens are permitted to air environmental concerns and criticize polluters on social media, resulting in lower emissions from some factories  —  In spite of China's intensifying crackdown on political dissent, residents still have plenty of leeway to air their environmental concerns …

Meta begins rolling out AI-powered Instagram age verification to India and Brazil; the system uses AI to analyze video selfies or lets users provide IDs (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Meta begins rolling out AI-powered Instagram age verification to India and Brazil; the system uses AI to analyze video selfies or lets users provide IDs  —  Instagram, facing scrutiny from safety advocates, started testing a program in the U.S. earlier this year to verify users' age claiming to be 18 or older.

China's central bank: e-CNY transactions totaled ~$14B from December 2019 to August 2022, up 14% from ~$12.2B in December 2021, signaling slowing growth (Coco Feng/South China Morning Post)

Coco Feng / South China Morning Post:
China's central bank: e-CNY transactions totaled ~$14B from December 2019 to August 2022, up 14% from ~$12.2B in December 2021, signaling slowing growth  —  China's central bank digital currency transactions totalled 100 billion yuan (US$14 billion) from the start of the e-CNY initiative …

An internal Pentagon document says more than 80% of the US soldiers who used Microsoft's HoloLens experienced "mission-affecting physical impairments" (Anthony Capaccio/Bloomberg)

Anthony Capaccio / Bloomberg:
An internal Pentagon document says more than 80% of the US soldiers who used Microsoft's HoloLens experienced “mission-affecting physical impairments”  —  US soldiers using Microsoft Corp.'s new goggles in their latest field test suffered “mission-affecting physical impairments” …

Responding to outrage over Twitch's 30/70 fee split, an executive says Amazon expects the service to be "a sustainable, viable long-term business" (Nathan Grayson/Washington Post)

Nathan Grayson / Washington Post:
Responding to outrage over Twitch's 30/70 fee split, an executive says Amazon expects the service to be “a sustainable, viable long-term business”  —  Typically the big, pandemic-delayed return of Twitch's annual TwitchCon gathering in San Diego would be cause for celebration.