Techmeme
September 15, 2022, 9:55 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Adobe plans to buy UI design and prototyping tool Figma for ~$20B, half cash and half stock; CEO Dylan Field will continue to lead Figma; ADBE closed down 16.8%  —  Adobe Inc. agreed to buy software design startup Figma Inc. in a deal valued at about $20 billion in a bid to expand its suite of creative tools for professionals.
Mike Truppa / The Block:
Ethereum activates its long-awaited Merge upgrade, in development since 2020, and transactions are now being processed under proof of stake  —  - The Merge upgrade is transitioning Ethereum from proof of work to proof of stake.  — The Merge is one of the largest technological events in the industry to date.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
TikTok rolls out Now, a BeReal-like feature, to its app in the US, with daily prompts to capture a 10-second video or a photo using both front and back cameras  —  TikTok launched a new feature today that is basically just a copy of BeReal, the buzzy French social app that's been steadily gaining popularity.
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Source: Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox directed the New Product Experimentation division to scale back and focus entirely on short-form video innovation  —  Facebook's New Product Experimentation division is scaling back its mission dramatically, Platformer has learned.
Natasha Singer / New York Times:
California Governor Newsom signs into law an online safety bill that puts limits on the data companies collect on minors; the law goes into effect in July 2024  —  The bill could require many social media sites, games and other online services used by children to install protections for minors.
Casey Newton / Platformer:
TikTok and ByteDance's links to China mean wrongdoing will be punished more harshly in the US than Meta and Twitter, no matter how “transparent” the company is  —  In new testimony to Congress, the company faces stern questions on China  —  Ever since TikTok became …
Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Senator Ron Wyden reveals the CBP told Congress it adds data from ~10K travelers' devices per year to a database, accessible by 2,700 officers without a warrant  —  Contacts, call logs, messages and photos from up to 10,000 travelers' phones are saved to a government database every year
Mariella Moon / Engadget:
Snap makes Snapchat for Web available to all users globally, including chat, photos, and audio and video calls, releases iOS 16 lock screen widgets, and more  —  Snapchat's messaging and video chat features first made their way to browsers back in July, but only in select markets and for Snapchat+ subscribers.
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Some YouTube viewers say the platform's ads expanded in length and quantity over the past month or two, with reports of five to 10 unskippable ads per break  —  The experience of watching YouTube has been infiltrated by ads over the years as a means of maintaining the platform and supporting creators financially.
Charles Hutzler / Wall Street Journal:
Biden issues an executive order directing CFIUS to increase scrutiny of deals that give China and others access to critical tech or US citizens' personal data  —  A new executive order directs the panel screening foreign investment, Cfius, to look at deals in areas U.S. officials say are of interest to China
Financial Times:
Sources: alongside the UK's CMA, the EU is expected to open an in-depth probe into Microsoft's $75B Activision bid due to its size and concerns from rivals  —  Regulators in Brussels expected to follow CMA with plans for prolonged competition investigation  —  Microsoft's $75bn acquisition …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Winn.AI, maker of an AI assistant to help sales teams track, capture, and update CRM entries, comes out of stealth with a $17M seed led by Insight and S-Capital  —  Conventionally, salespeople are responsible for juggling tasks like following a playbook, capturing responses, building rapport …
Sandali Handagama / CoinDesk:
Chainalysis: emerging markets, led by Vietnam and the Philippines, drove global cryptocurrency adoption over the past year; China remained active despite a ban  —  The blockchain analytics firm's 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index also shows China remains active despite a ban on crypto trading.

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Earlier Picks

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