Techmeme
September 15, 2022, 9:55 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.
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.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
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.
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Source: Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox directed the New Product Experimentation division to scale back and focus entirely on short-form video innovation  —  Facebook's New Product Experimentation division is scaling back its mission dramatically, Platformer has learned.
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.
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:
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.
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Some YouTube viewers say the platform's ads expanded in length and quantity over the past month or two, with reports of five to 10 unskippable ads per break  —  The experience of watching YouTube has been infiltrated by ads over the years as a means of maintaining the platform and supporting creators financially.
Charles Hutzler / Wall Street Journal:
Biden issues an executive order directing CFIUS to increase scrutiny of deals that give China and others access to critical tech or US citizens' personal data  —  A new executive order directs the panel screening foreign investment, Cfius, to look at deals in areas U.S. officials say are of interest to China
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 …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Winn.AI, maker of an AI assistant to help sales teams track, capture, and update CRM entries, comes out of stealth with a $17M seed led by Insight and S-Capital  —  Conventionally, salespeople are responsible for juggling tasks like following a playbook, capturing responses, building rapport …
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.

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
The crossroads of AI and SaaS  —  Enabling businesses of all sizes to build products in-house and disqualifying SaaS tools that are not AI-powered.  In a span of just two years, AI has made a name for itself as the key driver for innovation.
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 12/20 - Gemini Flash Thinking
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:55 PM ET, September 15, 2022.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Melissa Repko / CNBC:
Stephanie Murray / The Block: