Google's Bard announcement tweet included a GIF of the AI chatbot giving an inaccurate answer to a question about the James Webb Space Telescope; GOOG drops 7%+  —  Google published an online advertisement in which its much anticipated AI chatbot BARD delivered inaccurate answers.

The UK CMA finds Microsoft's $69B Activision Blizzard acquisition would harm competition in the UK's gaming market, suggests and asks Microsoft for remedies  —  Microsoft Corp.'s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. will harm competition in the UK gaming market …

Twitter lets US Blue subscribers tweet up to 4,000 characters; in timelines, longer tweets will be capped at 280 characters and have an option to “Show more”  —  need more than 280 characters to express yourself? we know that lots of you do... and while we love a good thread, sometimes you just want to Tweet everything all at once. we get that. so we're introducing longer Tweets! you're gonna want to check this out. tap this 👉... https://twitter.com/...

Google's AI demo in Paris paled in comparison to Microsoft's “new Bing” event, highlighting why Google needs to widely release its ChatGPT rival service Bard  —  Google demoed its latest advances in AI search at a live event in Paris on Wednesday — but the features pale in comparison …

Google releases the first Android 14 developer preview, for Pixel phones, offering multi-device experiences, customization features, security changes, and more  —  Google announced the Android 14 Developer Preview today.  The February release was expected and matches last year, while it comes as 13 QPR2 is still in beta.

Netflix rolls out its long-anticipated password sharing rules in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain; other countries will be added in the next few months  —  Under new rules, premium and standard account holders will be given option to add extra members for $7.99 per month

US House Oversight Committee members questioned three former Twitter executives about suppressing accounts, tweets, and the New York Post's Hunter Biden story  —  A congressional hearing Wednesday represented a moment of political reckoning more than two years in the making …

NetBlocks: Turkish ISPs limit Twitter access two days after a major earthquake; Turkish police detain 18 people for sharing “provocative posts” on social media  —  Access to Twitter has been restricted in Turkey, according to reports by an internet monitoring company …

Internal memo: Apple names Carol Surface as its first chief people officer, shifting human resources responsibilities away from SVP of Retail Deirdre O'Brien  —  Apple Inc. is hiring its first chief people officer and shifting human resources duties from its head of retail …

Microsoft plans to embed Adobe's Acrobat PDF tech in Edge for Windows 10 and Windows 11 starting in March 2023 and remove Edge's legacy PDF engine in March 2024  —  Microsoft announced today that it is partnering with Adobe to bring Acrobat PDF capabilities to the Microsoft Edge web browser on Windows.

Robinhood plans to buy up to 55M shares, or 7%+ of the company's outstanding shares, that Sam Bankman-Fried bought in 2022 and the US DOJ seized in January 2023  —  - Robinhood's board has approved a plan to purchase Sam Bankman-Fried's shares in the company, which amount to more than a 7% stake.

Clay Bavor, a Google veteran of 18 years who recently led the company's AR/VR efforts, leaves to start an AI company with former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor  —  For the past few years, Google's AR and VR efforts have been led by Clay Bavor.  The longtime executive is now set to leave the company next month.

Source: the SEC is investigating if crypto exchange Kraken offered unregistered securities in the US; the probe could lead to a settlement in the coming days  —  Kraken, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, is embroiled in a probe by a top US financial regulator over whether …

Many Twitter users worldwide are reporting issues with the site and say they are not able to tweet, except via an API or by scheduling tweets  —  Shortly after Twitter launched its huge increase in max character count to 4,000 today, many users aren't able to tweet this afternoon.

Chiliz, the crypto startup behind fan token service Socios, launches its Layer 1 blockchain Chiliz Chain 2.0, a BNB Chain fork, shifting away from Ethereum  —  Marking its fifth anniversary, sports-focused crypto startup Chiliz has officially unveiled its own layer-1 EVM-compatible blockchain.

Mozilla says the company is doing “exploratory work” for a Gecko-based browser on iOS in case Apple drops its WebKit requirement, after a similar move by Google  —  Work on a Gecko-based version of Firefox for iOS is underway, again  —  UPDATED Mozilla is planning for the day when Apple …

Affirm reports Q2 revenue up 11% YoY to $400M, vs. $416M est., net loss up 102% YoY to $322.4M, and lays off 19% of its workforce; AFRM drops 16%+ after hours  —  Follow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT  —  Affirm announced its cutting 19% of its workforce as it reported second quarter earnings …

Instagram expands Gifts, a monetization feature that lets fans tip Reels creators using its virtual currency Stars, to more US creators, after a test in 2022  —  Instagram announced today it's expanding access to a new monetization feature called Gifts to more creators across the U.S. The feature …

Masayoshi Son now owes SoftBank ~$5.1B on side deals he set up to boost his compensation, after his unrealized losses grew by ~$400M from three months prior  —  Masayoshi Son is now personally on the hook for about $5.1 billion on side deals he set up at SoftBank Group Corp. to boost his compensation …