Techmeme
March 5, 2024, 5:10 PM

Top News

Reuters:
A BlackCat ransomware gang website shows a takedown notice; the UK NCA denies involvement and experts suggest an exit scam after an alleged UnitedHealth payment  —  A website used by hackers responsible for a breach at UnitedHealth Group (UNH.N) has been replaced by a notice saying it has been seized by international law enforcement.
Zac Bowden / Windows Central:
Sources: Microsoft plans a March 21 announcement of a Surface Laptop 6 and OLED Surface Pro 10, both offered with Intel Core Ultra or Snapdragon X Elite chips  —  Microsoft's first AI PCs will be unveiled on March 21, ahead of next-gen Windows 11 AI features coming this fall.  —  What you need to know
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft will end support for its Android subsystem in Windows 11 on March 5, 2025, and consequently, for the Amazon Appstore on Windows as well  —  Microsoft is ending support for its Android subsystem in Windows 11 next year.  The software giant first announced it was bringing Android apps …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Meta confirms a technical issue caused an outage affecting Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Meta Quest logins, and more, for over two hours  —  Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are all experiencing issues.  The three Meta-owned platforms aren't working for many users, with the widespread outage seeming to start around 10AM ET.
David Pierce / The Verge:
Google rolls out updates to its Search ranking, including downranking content that summarizes others' work, to counter the spread of AI content in results  —  Google is rolling out a few new changes to its ranking systems in search, which are designed to help surface good content in your results …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
iOS 17.4 launches with new EU App Store business terms, with some last-minute tweaks like no longer needing a €1M stand-by letter of credit to start a store  —  With the launch of iOS 17.4, Apple's app ecosystem changes in the European Union have gone into effect.
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Google outlines updates to comply with the EU's DMA: search changes to prioritize large intermediaries and aggregators, new tools for app developers, and more  —  Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google on Tuesday outlined changes to search results and new tools for apps developers to promote their products …
Financial Times:
Counterpoint Research:
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch:
The US Treasury sanctions spyware group Intellexa Consortium's founder and one of his business partners, the first US sanctions on people over spyware misuse  —  The U.S. government announced Tuesday sanctions against the founder of the notorious spyware company Intellexa and one of his business partners.
CoinDesk:
Bitcoin surpassed $69K, eclipsing its previous all-time high set on November 10, 2021, with US spot bitcoin ETFs a likely catalyst of the latest bull run  —  The success of the spot ETFs which opened for business on January 11 was the catalyst for this latest bull run for the world's largest crypto.
Diane Brady / Fortune:
Accenture says it plans to acquire online learning company Udacity and announces LearnVantage, a learning suite it pledges to expand with $1B over three years  —  In her first webcast, on her first day as CEO of Accenture in 2019, Julie Sweet announced the launch of a Technology Quotient program …
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Nothing debuts the 6.7" Phone (2a), its first budget phone, with a 5,000mAh battery and a MediaTek chip, starting at £319 for 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage  —  Budget phones tend to be pretty forgettable, but the Nothing Phone 2A isn't your average budget phone — that much is obvious just looking at it.
Leo Schwartz / Fortune:
The COO of Binance US testified in Dec. 2023 that after the SEC sued Binance in June, Binance US laid off two-thirds of its staff and revenue plunged ~75%  —  The Securities and Exchange Commission hit Binance with a massive lawsuit in June of this year and, not long after …
TechCrunch:
X's audio and video calls, which are on by default, are peer-to-peer, revealing users' IP addresses to each other unless they toggle an enhanced privacy setting  —  The new X calling feature can hurt your privacy  —  In his quest to turn a simple and functioning Twitter app into X …

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Earlier Picks

Bloomberg:
Emilia David / The Verge:
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Lawrence Bonk / Engadget:
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac: