Techmeme
August 22, 2023, 2:15 PM

Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
To appease the UK, Microsoft restructures its Activision deal by committing to sell Activision's cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft; the UK CMA will now investigate  —  Microsoft is restructuring its proposed Activision Blizzard deal to transfer cloud gaming rights for current and new Activision Blizzard games to Ubisoft.
Kylie Robison / Fortune:
Elon Musk says that X plans to remove preview headlines from posts linking to articles, so that the previews show only the article's lead image and the URL  —  X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter, is planning a major change in how news articles appear on the service …
Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Meta plans to let Instagram and Facebook users in the EU opt out of its recommendation algorithms for Reels, Stories, Search, and more, to comply with the DSA  —  Instagram and Facebook users in Europe are getting more options to opt out of Meta's recommendation algorithms, the company has explained in a blog post today.
Joseph Cox / 404 Media:
A look at the dire state of Americans' privacy, worsened by credit bureaus' data policies; Telegram bots sell troves of personal info on targets for ~$15 in BTC  —  Most Americans have very little choice but to provide their personal information to credit bureaus.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft releases a public preview of Python in Excel, which will run Python calculations in Azure, first on Windows and then other platforms “at a later date”  —  Microsoft is bringing popular programming language Python to Excel.  A public preview of the feature is available today …
Dave James / PC Gamer:
Nvidia announces DLSS 3.5 with AI-powered Ray Reconstruction, designed to recognize patterns within a noisy image and improve clarity, available on all RTX GPUs  —  Bringing AI to bear on those noisy traced rays.  —  Nvidia has announced a gorgeous new update to its Deep Learning Super Sampling technology.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Meta is rolling out a much more capable Threads web app over the next few days, offering the ability to post, interact with other posts, and look at the feed  —  Meta is finally launching a much more capable web app for Threads, the company announced on Tuesday.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Meta releases SeamlessM4T, an AI model that can translate and transcribe nearly 100 languages across text and speech, and SeamlessAlign, a translation dataset  —  In its quest to develop AI that can understand a range of different dialects, Meta has created an AI model, SeamlessM4T …
Avram Piltch / Tom's Hardware:
CNBC:
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
Ramp, which offers credit cards and expense management tools, raised $300M at a $5.8B valuation from Founders Fund and others, down from $8.1B in March 2022  —  - Firm raises $300 million from Founders Fund, Thrive, others  — Startup valued at $8.1 billion in financing last year
More: Reuters, TechCrunch, and Ramp
Leah Nylen / Bloomberg:
Sources: Thoma Bravo will close its $2.3B acquisition of identity software provider ForgeRock this week after the US DOJ declined to challenge the deal  —  - Justice Department probed identify management software overlap  —  Thoma Bravo LLC will close its $2.3 billion acquisition …

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Leo Schwartz / Fortune:
Emily Baker-White / Forbes:
Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk:
Miles Kruppa / Wall Street Journal: