Techmeme
June 30, 2021, 1:00 PM

Top News

David McLaughlin / Bloomberg:
Amazon says it is seeking the recusal of FTC chair Lina Khan from matters related to the company, citing her history of criticism and antitrust arguments  —  Amazon.com Inc. wants Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan recused from any matters involving the company because of her history criticizing …
Bloomberg:
Sources: amid escalating rivalry, neither Google nor Microsoft are keen to renew a recently-expired truce to not use their lobbying firepower against each other  —  A non-aggression pact forged by their CEOs expired in April, threatening to add fuel to industry's antitrust battles
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Hands-on with Windows 11 preview: a new and refreshing approach, with welcome and simplified UI updates; Snap Layouts and Snap Groups improve multitasking  —  Microsoft's first Windows 11 preview looks promising  —  Microsoft's first version of Windows appeared more than 35 years ago …
Gilad Edelman / Wired:
While a judge dismissing FTC's suit against Facebook was a setback, experts say the 30-day window to refile and prove Facebook has a monopoly should be enough  —  A judge dealt the Federal Trade Commission a setback this week in its quest to break the company up—but also provided a roadmap for how to proceed.
Scott Rosenberg / Axios:
Dave Michaels / Wall Street Journal:
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fines Robinhood $70M for misleading customers and system outages, the biggest fine it has ever imposed  —  Online brokerage faulted for missteps related to options trading and technology outages; company neither admits nor denies allegations
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Slack releases Slack Huddles, an audio chat tool, and details new features, including video messages and an enhanced company directory  —  Slack started talking about a new set of communications tools to enhance the text-based channels at the end of last year.
Varun Mishra / Counterpoint Research:
iPhone 12 series sales crossed 100M globally in April 2021, seven months after launch, two months faster than iPhone 11; iPhone 12 Pro Max had a 29% sales share  —  Beijing, San Diego, Buenos Aires, London, New Delhi, Seoul - June 30, 2021  —  Exactly 14 years ago, Apple disrupted …
Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post:
GAO report finds 20 out of 42 federal agencies surveyed use facial recognition tech and sheds light on how deeply the tech is integrated into federal agencies  —  Black Lives Matter protesters, Jan. 6 rioters and regular travelers are among those targeted by agencies using the tech, including the IRS and the Postal Service
Stephen Nellis / Reuters:
Microsoft and AT&T say the carrier will run core parts of its 5G network on Azure; AT&T's newer networks rely more heavily on virtualization than hardware  —  Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and AT&T Inc (T.N) on Wednesday said that the carrier will run core parts of its 5G wireless network on Microsoft's cloud computing platform.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Instagram confirms it is working on tools to let creators share “exclusive” content to Stories for paying fans  —  Instagram is building its own version of Twitter's Super Follow with a feature that would allow online creators to publish “exclusive” content to their Instagram Stories that's …
Dan Primack / Axios:
TikTok says it removed 11M+ accounts during Q1 2021, including 7M+ for belonging to those under 13; around 62M videos were removed, or 1% of all uploaded  —  TikTok on Wednesday said it removed more than 7 million accounts “from the full TikTok experience” during the first quarter of 2021 …
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Facebook unveils Bulletin, its Substack newsletter competitor, but is not yet accepting signups and says it won't take a cut of creators' revenue “at launch”  —  Facebook won't take a cut ‘at launch’  —  Facebook is getting into the subscription newsletter game.
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Microsoft and OpenAI announce GitHub Copilot, an AI-based tool to recommend code to software developers in almost any programming language  —  - GitHub, GitHub's parent company Microsoft and OpenAI have teamed up to deliver a tool that comes up with source code for programmers to use as they work.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Moveworks, which automates enterprise IT tasks using chatbots, raises $200M Series C led by Tiger Global and Alkeon Capital at a $2.1B post-money valuation  —  Where does your enterprise stand on the AI adoption curve?  Take our AI survey to find out.  —  Moveworks, a platform designed …
More: Bloomberg
Evan Ratliff / Bloomberg:
Investigation of Ray Hushpuppi, a Nigerian influencer with a lavish lifestyle, who authorities say mastered business email compromise attacks, netting millions  —  For Ramon Abbas, the Instagram influencer popularly known as Ray Hushpuppi, @hushpuppi, Hush, or the Billionaire Gucci Master, birthdays were always a time for reflection.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Ahead of a House hearing, Microsoft's customer security chief says as many as one-third of all US government data demands are issued with secrecy clauses  —  Microsoft's customer security chief says as many as one-third of all government demands that the company receives for customer data …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Shopify drops Shopify App Store's cut to 0% on devs' first $1M in revenue, says app developer partners earned $233M in 2020, more than 2018 and 2019 combined  —  Following similar moves by Apple, Google, and more recently Amazon, among others, e-commerce platform Shopify announced today it's …

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Annabelle Dickson / Politico:

Earlier Picks

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: