Techmeme
December 8, 2022, 5:30 PM

Top News

Federal Trade Commission:
The FTC sues to block Microsoft's $69B Activision Blizzard acquisition, charging that the deal announced in January may suppress Microsoft's gaming competitors  —  The lawsuit marks FTC chair Lina Khan's most significant effort to date to address tech industry consolidation, and it could upend Microsoft's gaming ambitions
Tatum Hunter / Washington Post:
A look at Prisma Labs' portrait generation app Lensa, which launched in 2018 and took off in 2022, after adding Stable Diffusion-based “magic avatars”  —  Social media is celebrating.  Artists are protesting.  What's the real cost of an AI-generated portrait?
Sami Fathi / MacRumors:
A look at the reaction to Apple's E2EE news: the FBI is “deeply concerned” and says the change “hinders” its work while the EFF and others applaud the feature  —  Apple yesterday announced that end-to-end encryption is coming to even more sensitive types of iCloud data …
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Debunking claims on Twitter's handling of the Hunter Biden laptop story, including that Twitter engaged in election interference or violated the First Amendment  —  Hello!  Someone has referred you to this post because you've said something quite wrong about Twitter and how it handled something to do with Hunter Biden's laptop.
Sebastian Herrera / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon rolls out Inspire, a TikTok-like photo and video feed in its app that lets customers “like” and buy products, initially to select customers in the US  —  The tech giant joins Facebook, Google in seeking to capitalize on popularity of short-form video format
Kollen Post / The Block:
The US Senate Banking Committee calls on SBF to testify on December 14, a day after a similar House hearing; House lawmakers also threatened him with a subpoena  —  - The Senate committee wants Sam Bankman-Fried to testify the day after he's been told to testify in the House of Representatives …
New York Times:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google announces Chrome will get a Memory Saver mode, which promises to cut memory usage by up to 30%, and an Energy Saver mode, rolling out in the coming weeks  —  Google today announced two new performance settings in its Chrome browser: Memory Saver and Energy Saver.
Erin Woo / The Information:
Source: Twitter plans to change Twitter Blue's $8 per month price to $11 per month on iOS, likely due to Apple's 30% App Store cut, and $7 per month on the web  —  Twitter has informed some employees that it plans to change the pricing of its Twitter Blue subscription product to $7 if users pay …
Ezra Reguerra / Cointelegraph:
Some NFTs minted on FTX now show blank images instead of the original art as the metadata points to an FTX.US domain used for a bankruptcy restructuring website  —  NFTs hosted on FTX platform were affected by the firm's collapse, showing blank images instead of the original art.  —  191 Total views
Jon Porter / The Verge:
The EU sets a December 28, 2024, deadline for new smartphones, tablets, headphones, handheld game consoles, and other devices to use USB-C for wired charging  —  We finally have a final official deadline for when new phones sold in the European Union — including future iPhones …
Andrew Liszewski / Gizmodo:
Dyson announces the $949 Dyson Zone headphones, offering active noise cancellation and filters to block unwanted airborne particles, for preorder in March 2023  —  The company's first audio product promises to eliminate both unwanted noise and unwanted air particles.  —  Alerts
Joseph De Avila / Wall Street Journal:
Disney rolls out its ad-supported Disney+ tier for $7.99 per month after signing up 100+ advertisers; the ad-free tier now costs $10.99 per month, up from $7.99  —  The overhaul of Disney+ comes after a slowdown in subscriber growth for streaming services  —  Walt Disney Co. DIS 0.68%increase …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
GitHub launches Copilot for Business, with corporate licensing and policy controls, for $19/user per month, and claims it won't store or share companies' code  —  GitHub Copilot, GitHub's service that intelligently suggests lines of code, is now available in a plan for enterprises months …
Elizabeth Lopatto / The Verge:
A look at CoinDesk's blockbuster Alameda scoop that led to FTX's collapse and bankruptcy, adding to CoinDesk parent company Digital Currency Group's woes  —  What happens when a story has impact? … Depending on how you look at it, this is either a cautionary tale about how small and entwined …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: a letter by Foxconn founder Terry Gou to China's leadership, sent over a month ago during unrest in Zhengzhou, helped dismantle zero COVID-19 policies  —  Foxconn Technology Group founder Terry Gou warned that the government's strict policies would threaten its position in global supply chains

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Zoho:
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Miles Kruppa / Wall Street Journal: