Techmeme
May 2, 2022, 11:32 PM

Top News

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
Facebook plans to stop letting users add podcasts to the service this week, start removing them on June 3, and discontinue Soundbites and its central audio hub  —  Facebook is pulling out of podcasts and plans to remove them altogether from the social-media service starting June 3.
The Information:
Roadmap: Meta plans four VR headsets by 2024; source says high-end MR headset Cambria, once set for 2021, could debut in September before its successor in 2024  —  Meta Platforms is planning to release four virtual reality headsets between now and 2024, according to an internal road map viewed by The Information.
Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:
In preliminary findings, the EU says Apple abused its mobile payments dominance by limiting competitors' access to the NFC chip in iPhones, benefiting Apple Pay  —  EU preliminary findings say US group limits rivals' access to ‘tap and go’ technology  —  Brussels regulators have charged Apple …
Reuters:
Sources: Elon Musk asked investment firms and wealthy individuals for more Twitter financing and investors like Jack Dorsey to roll their stakes into the deal  —  Elon Musk is in talks with large investment firms and high net-worth individuals about taking on more financing for his $44 billion acquisition …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: millions of Grindr users' location data has been collected from a digital ad network and sold since at least 2017; Grindr says it has cut the data flow  —  Gay-dating app's user locations were collected and sold since at least 2017; Grindr two years ago curtailed the data it shares with advertising partners
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
In a lawsuit, Apple alleges SoC startup Rivos stole trade secrets after poaching 40+ engineers and that at least two took gigabytes of confidential information  —  (Reuters) - Technology startup Rivos Inc allegedly stole Apple Inc's computer-chip trade secrets after poaching its engineers …
Andrew Liszewski / Gizmodo:
Amazon plans to support the popular EPUB ebook format via the Send to Kindle feature in late 2022, and drop support for the MOBI and AZW formats  —  The Send to Kindle system will automatically convert EPUB files to the Kindle's proprietary ebook format.  —  Alerts
New York Times:
Google fires AI researcher Satrajit Chatterjee; sources: he was fired after Google refused to publish his paper rebutting a celebrated Google paper in Nature  —  The researchers are considered a key to the company's future.  But they have had a hard time shaking infighting and controversy over a variety of issues.
Sam Machkovech / Ars Technica:
Swedish game publisher Embracer buys Square Enix's three Western game studios, including their game series Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and Legacy of Kain, for $300M  —  $300 million deal includes “over 50” classic games' rights, over 1,000 devs.  —  On Monday, Japanese game publisher Square Enix confirmed …
Paresh Dave / Reuters:
Google offers to cover $100K+ worth of its Coursera online courses in data analytics, design, and other tech skills for up to 500 employees at any US business  —  Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google will provide any U.S. business over $100,000 worth of online courses in data analytics …
Bloomberg:
Wall Street Journal:
Filing: Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick could walk away with ~$520M after Microsoft's deal, set to close in 2023; he owns 4.3M shares and can buy 2.2M more  —  Friday securities filing lays out the longtime videogame boss's stake in the Call of Duty publisher and potential severance
More: Bloomberg
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Zepto, a 10-minute grocery delivery service, raises a $200M Series D led by Y Combinator Continuity at a ~$900M valuation, up from $570M in December 2021  —  Instant grocery startup Zepto has raised $200 million in a new financing round as it looks to expand its 10-minute-delivery service …

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More News

Jules Wang / Android Police:
Nicole Wetsman / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

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