Techmeme
June 30, 2023, 4:35 AM

Top News

Kent Walker / Google:
Google tells Canada's government it will remove Canadian news links from Search, News, and Discover and close Google News Showcase when Bill C-18 takes effect  —  President of Global Affairs, Google & Alphabet … The Government of Canada has enacted a new law called Bill C-18 …
Nitish Pahwa / Slate:
Canada may think it can negotiate with tech platforms over Bill C-18 based on Meta's 2021 deal with Australia, but it should take the firms' threat seriously  —  On June 22, the Canadian Parliament passed Bill C-18, also known as the Online News Act.  The new law, according to a government news release …
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
YouTube is running a test globally that limits ad blocker users to three videos, giving them the option to turn off their tool or subscribe to YouTube Premium  —  YouTube is currently running what it describes as a “small experiment globally,” warning users to toggle off their ad blockers …
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Meta plans to let people in the EU directly download apps through Facebook ads; a pilot is set to start with select Android app developers as soon as in 2023  —  Meta is planning to let people in the EU directly download apps through Facebook ads, setting the company up to eventually compete with Google and Apple's app stores.
Kotaku:
Niantic lays off 230 employees, closes its Los Angeles studio, and moves away from in-house game development, saying its expenses grew faster than its revenue  —  Pokémon Go will remain one of Niantic's top priorities moving forward  —  Niantic is shuttering its Los Angeles studio …
Bloomberg:
Filing: Fidelity refiles for a spot bitcoin ETF with the US SEC, after similar applications from BlackRock, Invesco, WisdomTree, Valkyrie, Bitwise, and others  —  Fidelity Investments is the latest financial services heavyweight to throw its name into the race to offer the first US exchange-traded fund investing in Bitcoin.
Julia Love / Bloomberg:
Police in San Francisco and other cities are obtaining warrants for Waymo and Cruise driverless car camera footage to help solve murders and other crimes  —  In December 2021, San Francisco police were working to solve the murder of an Uber driver.  As detectives reviewed local surveillance footage …
Aaron Holmes / The Information:
Court docs: Satya Nadella said Azure's cloud server business made $34B in revenue in the year ended June 2022; AWS generated $72B in revenue in the same period  —  For years Microsoft has kept a lid on details about the true size of its Azure cloud server rental business …
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Inflection AI, a startup led by DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman that released its Pi chatbot in May 2023, raised $1.3B, a source says at a $4B valuation  —  Backed by Microsoft, Nvidia and billionaires Reid Hoffman, Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt, the startup led by ex-DeepMind leader Mustafa Suleyman …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Q&A with Marc Andreessen on “Public Intellectual Marc”, software and the physical world, his AI essay, COVID-19, Twitter, China, a16z, crypto bets, and more  —  Today's Stratechery Interview — and the last Interview of the summer — is with Marc Andreessen.
Josh Scott / BetaKit:
Ontario-based Passage, which is building a service that helps immigrants access financing to learn and work in Canada, raised a CA$40M seed led by Drive Capital  —  Ex-ApplyBoard CEO plans to finance skilled immigrants that meet Canada's workforce needs.  —  After spending seven years …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Microsoft adds AI-powered shopping tools, including GPT-generated buying guides in the US, to its Bing search engine and the Bing AI chatbot in Edge's sidebar  —  Microsoft today announced a slew of new AI-powered shopping tools for its new Bing search engine and the Bing AI chatbot in the Edge sidebar.
Andrew DeMillo / Associated Press:
Industry group NetChoice, which includes Meta and Twitter, sues Arkansas over a new law requiring parental permission for minors to create social media accounts  —  A tech industry trade group sued Arkansas on Thursday challenging a new state law that requires parental permission for minors to create social media accounts.
Sachin Ravikumar / Reuters:
The UK amends its Online Safety Bill, requiring higher age verification standards for porn sites and holding executives personally responsible for child safety  —  Britain said on Friday it had tightened protections in its Online Safety Bill that will prevent children from viewing pornography …
Brian Josephs / New York Times:
Mixtape sites democratized releasing music in the CD era, but with the rise of streaming they face the challenge of archiving music that isn't necessarily legal  —  Websites offering up free — and not always legal — music flourished in the gap between the fall of the CD era and the rise of streaming.
Kate Park / TechCrunch:
Seoul-based Levit, which operates the shopping app Alwayz that uses social features and gamification to draw customers, raised a $46M Series B led by DST Global  —  Seoul-based e-commerce company Levit, an operator of the shopping app Alwayz, wants to make the shopping experience more entertaining and affordable.

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Earlier Picks

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