Techmeme
September 15, 2022, 6:40 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Adobe plans to buy UI design and prototyping tool Figma for ~$20B, half cash and half stock; CEO Dylan Field will continue to lead Figma; ADBE closed down 16.8%  —  Adobe Inc. agreed to buy software design startup Figma Inc. in a deal valued at about $20 billion in a bid to expand its suite of creative tools for professionals.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Casey Newton / Platformer:
TikTok and ByteDance's links to China mean wrongdoing will be punished more harshly in the US than Meta and Twitter, no matter how “transparent” the company is  —  In new testimony to Congress, the company faces stern questions on China  —  Ever since TikTok became …
Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
In a US Senate committee hearing, Meta, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter executives defended their platforms and dodged security, privacy, and moderation questions  —  Executives from four of the biggest social media companies testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee Wednesday …
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
TikTok rolls out Now, a BeReal-like feature, to its app in the US, with daily prompts to capture a 10-second video or a photo using both front and back cameras  —  TikTok launched a new feature today that is basically just a copy of BeReal, the buzzy French social app that's been steadily gaining popularity.
Mike Truppa / The Block:
Ethereum activates its long-awaited Merge upgrade, in development since 2020, and transactions are now being processed under proof of stake  —  - The Merge upgrade is transitioning Ethereum from proof of work to proof of stake.  — The Merge is one of the largest technological events in the industry to date.
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Senator Ron Wyden reveals the CBP told Congress it adds data from ~10K travelers' devices per year to a database, accessible by 2,700 officers without a warrant  —  Contacts, call logs, messages and photos from up to 10,000 travelers' phones are saved to a government database every year
Mariella Moon / Engadget:
Snap makes Snapchat for Web available to all users globally, including chat, photos, and audio and video calls, releases iOS 16 lock screen widgets, and more  —  Snapchat's messaging and video chat features first made their way to browsers back in July, but only in select markets and for Snapchat+ subscribers.
Financial Times:
Sources: alongside the UK's CMA, the EU is expected to open an in-depth probe into Microsoft's $75B Activision bid due to its size and concerns from rivals  —  Regulators in Brussels expected to follow CMA with plans for prolonged competition investigation  —  Microsoft's $75bn acquisition …
Natasha Singer / New York Times:
California Governor Newsom signs into law an online safety bill that puts limits on the data companies collect on minors; the law goes into effect in July 2024  —  The bill could require many social media sites, games and other online services used by children to install protections for minors.
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Meta's Oversight Board says the company should be more careful with automated moderation and criticizes it for removing a cartoon of police violence in Colombia  —  Meta's Oversight Board says the company should be more careful with automated moderation tools, criticizing it for removing a cartoon depicting police violence in Colombia.
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
EU lawmakers propose the Cyber Resilience Act, a set of cybersecurity rules for IoT and smart device makers to provide ongoing support and patches or face fines  —  European Union lawmakers have proposed a new set of product rules to apply to smart devices that's intended to compel makers …
Sandali Handagama / CoinDesk:
Chainalysis: emerging markets, led by Vietnam and the Philippines, drove global cryptocurrency adoption over the past year; China remained active despite a ban  —  The blockchain analytics firm's 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index also shows China remains active despite a ban on crypto trading.

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Earlier Picks

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