Techmeme
May 16, 2023, 8:25 AM

Top News

Cristina Criddle / Financial Times:
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman plans to tell Congress that AI regulation is “essential”, stress the need for government flexibility, and recommend safety measures  —  OpenAI's chief executive Sam Altman will tell US lawmakers on Tuesday that regulation of artificial intelligence must allow companies …
Casey Wagner / Blockworks:
In its response to a US federal court, the SEC says Coinbase has no right to compel the agency to issue guidelines for crypto companies “on a specific timeline”  —  The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a response to Coinbase's complaint requesting the agency to establish regulatory clarity for the industry.
Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios:
Source: Twitter buys recruiting startup Laskie for “tens of millions” in cash and stock, its first deal of the Elon Musk era; PitchBook: Laskie had raised $6M  —  Twitter appears to have made its first deal of the Elon Musk era: Buying a job-matching tech startup called Laskie, Axios has learned.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
WhatsApp debuts Chat Lock, letting users put chats in a password- or biometrics-protected folder and removing sender and message contents from notifications  —  WhatsApp is getting a new “Chat Lock” feature intended to make it easier to keep conversations more private.
Platformer:
Twitter's encrypted DMs don't offer end-to-end encryption, making them vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks and open to government access requests  —  A promised audit hasn't actually happened, sources say.  PLUS: Twitter's Turkey problem, and a new CEO
Alexander Osipovich / Wall Street Journal:
SEC court filings: Jump Trading secretly purchased tens of millions of dollars worth of TerraUSD and made ~$1B profit per year before the coin's 2022 collapse  —  Chicago firm made about $1 billion through dealings with crypto mogul Do Kwon's company, according to the agency
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Amazon job listings mention an “AI-first initiative to re-architect” search and “reimagining Amazon Search with an interactive conversational experience”  —  Amazon.com Inc. plans to bring ChatGPT-style product search to its web store, rivaling efforts by Microsoft Corp …
Adam Satariano / New York Times:
EU regulators approve Microsoft's $69B Activision Blizzard acquisition after Microsoft made concessions to keep rivals' access to Call of Duty and other games  —  The green light follows objections to the blockbuster deal by American and British regulators on the grounds that it would undercut competition.
Financial Times:
As the European Central Bank prepares to pilot a digital euro in October, consumers, financiers, and politicians are questioning the project's aims and benefits  —  Europe's central bank is pushing ahead with the development of electronic currency even as politicians question its purpose
Jacob Bogage / Washington Post:
Sources: the IRS quietly built a prototype system to let Americans file tax returns digitally and free of charge, with a pilot slated to launch in January 2024  —  The prototype program developed by the federal government could be available for a small group of taxpayers by January
Ciara O'Brien / The Irish Times:
Irish Council for Civil Liberties: 75% of the Irish DPC's GDPR decisions in EU-level cases since 2018 have been overruled by the European Data Protection Board  —  Meta, Google, Airbnb, Yahoo!, Twitter, Microsoft, Apple and Tinder account for 87^% of cross-border GDPR complaints to Ireland's DPC
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
Apple announces a suite of features to improve cognitive, vision, and speech accessibility on iOS and iPadOS, rolling out later in 2023  —  Apple previewed a suite of new features today to improve cognitive, vision and speech accessibility.  These tools are slated to arrive on the iPhone, iPad and Mac later this year.

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Earlier Picks

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Phoebe Liu / Forbes:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg:
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Jared Newman / Fast Company: