Techmeme
May 20, 2023, 3:05 PM

Top News

Lia Haberman / ICYMI:
Meta briefed some creators on Instagram's decentralized text-based app that may launch in June 2023 with a Twitter-like design, Mastodon compatibility, and more  —  Meta's hosting secret meetings with select creators to share details  —  [a sneak peek at Instagram's new text-based app]
Rebekah Valentine / IGN:
China's State Administration approves Microsoft's $69B acquisition of Activision Blizzard, joining a total of 37 regulators globally, including the EU and Japan  —  Thirty-seven total regulators have voiced approval thus far.  —  China's State Administration has approved Microsoft's attempted …
Charlie Savage / New York Times:
Court finds FBI misused a FISA Section 702 database 278K+ times between 2020 and 2021, as the White House seeks to persuade Congress to renew the law in 2023  —  The bureau made changes after the newly revealed violations of rules for querying messages intercepted under an expiring warrantless surveillance law.
Financial Times:
Sources: top shareholder SoftBank demanded compensation from Revolut after UK regulators told the startup to simplify its ownership to obtain a banking license  —  Minister to meet payment group's bosses amid fears UK's biggest tech group will leave the country
Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:
After Niantic's latest AR game Peridot got negative app store reviews and few downloads, a look at the company's metaverse games struggling to find an audience  —  Just a few years ago, tech evangelists were hailing Niantic Inc., the maker of the hit game Pokémon Go …
Neeva:
Neeva, founded by ex-Google executive Sridhar Ramaswamy, plans to shut down its ad-free search engine, citing a “vastly changed search environment” and more  —  We started Neeva with the mission to take search back to its users.  Having worked on search and search ads for over a decade …
Leo Schwartz / Fortune:
Bitcoin payment service Strike expands to 65 countries, beyond the US, El Salvador, and Argentina, and says it is taking a regulation-first approach in the US  —  Since starting in 2019, the Bitcoin-powered payments app Strike has aimed to become a global crypto-powered equivalent to Venmo or Cash App.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple shares its first App Store Transparency Report, listing app rejections, government requests, and more, as part of a settlement in a 2021 developer lawsuit  —  Earlier this week, Apple shared an in-depth look at how the App Store helped prevent fraud and protect developers and customers alike.
Ariana Perez-Castells / Wall Street Journal:
Some doctors, bird watchers, and others still use pagers due to their simplicity; paging company Spok has 800K+ pagers in use in the US, down from 6.6M in 2004  —  Fans, including some doctors and bird watchers, appreciate the simplicity of the once-popular devices, even as others move on

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