Techmeme
March 26, 2024, 1:10 PM

Top News

Olivia Poh / Bloomberg:
Canva acquires Affinity, popular with Mac users for its photo editing and other tools, to take on Adobe, Canva's COO says for “several hundred million pounds”  —  - Australian unicorn buys British team behind Affinity art suite  — Affinity offers alternative tools to Adobe's flagship products
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Memo: Microsoft names Pavan Davuluri as its Windows and Surface chief; Microsoft split its Windows and Surface groups after Panos Panay left in September 2023  —  Microsoft is naming Pavan Davuluri as its new Windows and Surface chief today.  After Panos Panay's surprise departure to Amazon last year …
Chris Plante / Polygon:
An interview with Phil Spencer on bringing Xbox to handhelds via hardware or software, how Valve, Lenovo, and Asus “innovated in a new form factor”, and more  —  A handheld Xbox could be hardware, an app, or both  —  Phil Spencer has tried all of the new PC gaming handhelds …
CoinDesk:
The US DOJ charges crypto exchange KuCoin and two co-founders with violating anti-money laundering laws, failing to register with the US government, and more  —  The exchange was charged under the Bank Secrecy Act.  —  U.S. federal prosecutors charged crypto exchange KuCoin and two of its founders …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Adobe launches GenStudio to let brands create content and measure its performance using generative AI, underpinned by promises of brand safety  —  Brands want to use generative AI to personalize their marketing efforts — but they are also deathly afraid of AI going off message and ruining their brand.
Timmy Shen / The Block:
The US OFAC sanctions 13 entities, including Netex24, and two individuals for helping Russian nationals potentially evade sanctions by building crypto services  —  - The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned 13 entities and two individuals for helping sanctioned entities to evade sanctions in Russia.
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
OpenAI releases seven Sora videos from select filmmakers, artists, ad agencies, and musicians; Fairly Trained CEO Ed Newton-Rex calls the move “artistwashing”  —  OpenAI has been releasing a steady drip of videos generated by its new highly realistic AI model, Sora, but the text-to-video …
David Pierce / The Verge:
AI search engines review: they are worse than Google at navigational queries, mixed on information queries, and offer helpful citations in exploration queries  —  The AI search tools are getting better — but they don't yet understand what a search engine really is and how we really use them.
Edward Ludlow / Bloomberg:
Internal Tesla memo: Elon Musk tells staff to give buyers a “short test ride” to demonstrate Full Self-Driving, now a “hard requirement” in North America  —  - New requirement will slow delivery process, Musk says in memo  — Full Self-Driving, other features have generated controversy
Wayne Ma / The Information:
Source: Tencent agrees to release some of its most important apps on the Apple Vision Pro  —  When Apple launched the Vision Pro headset, it leaned heavily on its own streaming app, as well as those of Disney and others, to market the headset's most compelling feature: an immersive video experience.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Sony plans to add a new opt-in Community Game Help feature on the PS5 later in 2024 that can automatically create clips for helping other players complete games  —  Sony is introducing a new Community Game Help feature on the PS5 later this year that is designed to automatically create clips that can help other players.
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Google plans to release a Chrome version optimized for Windows on Arm this week, two months after Canary testing; Arm PCs previously ran an emulated x64 version  —  Google is releasing an optimized version of its Chrome browser for Windows on Arm this week, the search giant has announced alongside chipmaker Qualcomm.
Bailey Lipschultz / Bloomberg:
Trump Media & Technology Group's shares jumped up to 58% to hit $78.80 on its trading debut before the Nasdaq briefly halted trading, following the DWAC merger  —  - Trump Media & Technology Group operates Truth Social  — Deal provides a windfall on paper for the former president
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Telegram rolls out its Peer-to-Peer Login Program, giving some Android users a Premium sub for volunteering their phone numbers to relay SMS OTPs to other users  —  Telegram is offering a new way to earn a premium subscription free of charge: all you have to do is volunteer your phone number …
Maxwell Zeff / Gizmodo:
Filings detail Meta's Project Ghostbusters to get data analytics about Snapchat, YouTube, and Amazon, using Onavo VPN on iOS and Android between 2016 and 2019  —  Unsealed court filings reveal Meta's secret plan, “Project Ghostbusters,” to acquire valuable intel about Snapchat through its users' devices.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Kevin Systrom says AI news app Artifact will stay online for now due to taking “a lot less to run it than we had imagined”, reversing a February shut down date  —  Artifact, the well-received AI-powered news app from Instagram's co-founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, may not be shutting down as planned.
More: The VergeBluesky: @mikalfm.bsky.social
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Meta confirms rolling out a political content setting on Instagram and Threads last week that limits “political content from people you don't follow” by default  —  Meta's executives have been saying for a while that they don't want to boost posts about politics in their apps.

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Earlier Picks

Bloomberg:
Josh Koehn / The San Francisco Standard:
Chris Dolmetsch / Bloomberg:
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Javier Espinoza / Financial Times: