Techmeme
May 20, 2023, 3:05 PM

Top News

Lia Haberman / ICYMI:
Meta briefed some creators on Instagram's decentralized text-based app that may launch in June 2023 with a Twitter-like design, Mastodon compatibility, and more  —  Meta's hosting secret meetings with select creators to share details  —  [a sneak peek at Instagram's new text-based app]
Rebekah Valentine / IGN:
China's State Administration approves Microsoft's $69B acquisition of Activision Blizzard, joining a total of 37 regulators globally, including the EU and Japan  —  Thirty-seven total regulators have voiced approval thus far.  —  China's State Administration has approved Microsoft's attempted …
Charlie Savage / New York Times:
Court finds FBI misused a FISA Section 702 database 278K+ times between 2020 and 2021, as the White House seeks to persuade Congress to renew the law in 2023  —  The bureau made changes after the newly revealed violations of rules for querying messages intercepted under an expiring warrantless surveillance law.
Financial Times:
Sources: top shareholder SoftBank demanded compensation from Revolut after UK regulators told the startup to simplify its ownership to obtain a banking license  —  Minister to meet payment group's bosses amid fears UK's biggest tech group will leave the country
Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:
After Niantic's latest AR game Peridot got negative app store reviews and few downloads, a look at the company's metaverse games struggling to find an audience  —  Just a few years ago, tech evangelists were hailing Niantic Inc., the maker of the hit game Pokémon Go …
Neeva:
Neeva, founded by ex-Google executive Sridhar Ramaswamy, plans to shut down its ad-free search engine, citing a “vastly changed search environment” and more  —  We started Neeva with the mission to take search back to its users.  Having worked on search and search ads for over a decade …
Leo Schwartz / Fortune:
Bitcoin payment service Strike expands to 65 countries, beyond the US, El Salvador, and Argentina, and says it is taking a regulation-first approach in the US  —  Since starting in 2019, the Bitcoin-powered payments app Strike has aimed to become a global crypto-powered equivalent to Venmo or Cash App.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple shares its first App Store Transparency Report, listing app rejections, government requests, and more, as part of a settlement in a 2021 developer lawsuit  —  Earlier this week, Apple shared an in-depth look at how the App Store helped prevent fraud and protect developers and customers alike.
Ariana Perez-Castells / Wall Street Journal:
Some doctors, bird watchers, and others still use pagers due to their simplicity; paging company Spok has 800K+ pagers in use in the US, down from 6.6M in 2004  —  Fans, including some doctors and bird watchers, appreciate the simplicity of the once-popular devices, even as others move on

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
Driving customer engagement: User experience optimization using SaaS products in the Middle East  —  The Middle Eastern software as a service (SaaS) market is projected to grow at an impressive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.1% from 2024 to 2030.
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Wed. 12/11 - Gemini 2.0
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:05 PM ET, May 20, 2023.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Jon Fingas / Engadget:

Earlier Picks

Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Cory Weinberg / The Information:
Financial Times:
Jiyoung Sohn / Wall Street Journal:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: