Techmeme
February 15, 2022, 8:05 AM

Top News

Kyle Bradshaw / 9to5Google:
Android 13 Developer Preview shows two “Cross Device” service apps that will let users interact with Pixel's Android apps on a Windows 11 PC or Chromebook  —  Google has been preparing a way to stream apps and notifications from your Pixel phone to your Chromebook or PC …
Bloomberg:
After India banned Sea's lucrative Free Fire game, the Singapore-based company lost $16B+ in market value, its largest-ever daily drop  —  Sea Ltd. lost more than $16 billion of value in its biggest daily market drop after India abruptly banned its most popular mobile gaming title.
Ian King / Bloomberg:
Intel plans to acquire Israeli chip company Tower Semiconductor for around $5.4B, or $53 per share; the deal is expected to close in 12 months  —  Intel Corp. agreed to acquire Tower Semiconductor Ltd. for about $5.4 billion, part of Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger's push into the outsourced chip-manufacturing business.
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget:
Instagram will let users send a private like in response to a Story, expanding on DMs or emoji reactions  —  Meta's Instagram is introducing a new way for people to interact with Stories.  Starting today, you can send a private like when someone shares an image or video that catches your eye.
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Microsoft tells employees it will fully reopen its facilities in Washington state starting February 28, citing high rates of COVID-19 vaccination in King County  —  Updated below with information on Expedia reopening.  —  One of the longest “three weeks” in history will soon come to an end.
Mumbi Gitau / Bloomberg:
After an animal rights group described Neuralink's tests as “invasive and deadly” for 23 monkeys, Neuralink defends testing on animals  —  Neuralink, the brain-computer interface company founded by Elon Musk, pushed back against criticism of its treatment of monkeys in research …
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Samsung has adopted Google Messages as its default messaging app in the US, starting with the Galaxy S22 series  —  Messaging on Android has been a mess for years, but the tide is finally changing.  With Google Messages bringing enhanced RCS messaging to virtually any Android user that wants it, there's finally a “default.”
Maxwell Strachan / VICE:
A look at the self-righteous anger in the Web3 community over the identification of the founders of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection  —  The self-righteous anger over the identification of the founders of a popular NFT club says a lot about the web3 battles to come in the years ahead.
John D. McKinnon / Wall Street Journal:
Texas sues Meta over its use of facial recognition from 2010 to late 2021 in the state; source says Texas seeks hundreds of billions of dollars in penalties  —  State says social-media giant violated privacy protections in lawsuit, seeks hundreds of billions of dollars in civil penalties
New York Times:
A profile of Peter Thiel, who plans to leave Meta's board to focus on politics, funding far-right MAGA candidates who peddle conspiracies and deny Biden won  —  Peter Thiel, one of Donald J. Trump's biggest donors in 2016, has re-emerged as a prime financier of the Make America Great Again movement.
Financial Times:
How SoftBank's costly bet on IoT at Arm backfired and distracted the company from the much bigger data center market  —  UK chip designer changes strategy ahead of planned float with renewed focus on lucrative server market  —  As Masayoshi Son tried to persuade investors of the wisdom …
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
A key EU lawmaker steering negotiations over the Digital Services Act says she is “optimistic we can make a deal before the end of June”  —  European Union lawmakers and countries could reach a deal by the end of June on proposed tech rules forcing online platforms to better police …

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