Thursday, January 19, 2023

India's Supreme Court declines Google's request to block the Competition Commission of India's antitrust order on Android, leaving in place a $116M fine (Reuters)

Reuters:
India's Supreme Court declines Google's request to block the Competition Commission of India's antitrust order on Android, leaving in place a $116M fine  —  India's competition regulator on Thursday denied allegations by Google that investigators had “copy-pasted” parts of a European ruling …



Twitter launches Blue on Android for $11 per month, the same as iOS and $3 more than the web, after launching an annual subscription (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Twitter launches Blue on Android for $11 per month, the same as iOS and $3 more than the web, after launching an annual subscription  —  A day after launching an annual Twitter Blue subscription, the social media company made the paid plan available for purchase for Android users today.



National Australia Bank creates the AUDN stablecoin, the second major Australian bank after ANZ's A$DC, letting customers settle transactions on the blockchain (James Eyers/Australian Financial Review)

James Eyers / Australian Financial Review:
National Australia Bank creates the AUDN stablecoin, the second major Australian bank after ANZ's A$DC, letting customers settle transactions on the blockchain  —  National Australia Bank has become the second of the major banks to create a stablecoin, called the AUDN, to allow its business customers …



CoinDesk retains investment bankers at Lazard to help the outlet explore options including a partial or full sale after "numerous" indications of interest (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
CoinDesk retains investment bankers at Lazard to help the outlet explore options including a partial or full sale after “numerous” indications of interest  —  Company has ‘received numerous inbound indications of interest,’ CEO Kevin Worth says  —  CoinDesk Inc. …



Wednesday, January 18, 2023

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Circle and other crypto companies are hoping to rehabilitate the industry's image after FTX and find new investors (Abha Bhattarai/Washington Post)

Abha Bhattarai / Washington Post:
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Circle and other crypto companies are hoping to rehabilitate the industry's image after FTX and find new investors  —  The World Economic Forum's annual gathering has become an unlikely destination for the crypto industry as it tries to raise its profile — and new funds



Twitter begins offering an annual Blue plan for $84 on the web, saving around 12% for a monthly web subscription and 36% for an iOS subscription (Richard Lawler/The Verge)

Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Twitter begins offering an annual Blue plan for $84 on the web, saving around 12% for a monthly web subscription and 36% for an iOS subscription  —  Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter, one of his aims has been to build up its subscription business, launching a revamped Twitter Blue package …



After criticism from users, Adobe Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky denies using customer projects to train the company's generative AI services (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
After criticism from users, Adobe Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky denies using customer projects to train the company's generative AI services  —  Adobe Inc. Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky said the company has never trained its generative artificial-intelligence services on customer projects …



As Apple shifts from China, experts worry India will struggle with iPhone production due to supply chain issues, labor woes, a lack of automation, and more (Patrick McGee/Financial Times)

Patrick McGee / Financial Times:
As Apple shifts from China, experts worry India will struggle with iPhone production due to supply chain issues, labor woes, a lack of automation, and more  —  The tech giant increasingly finds itself beholden to America's biggest geopolitical rival.  But is diversification even possible?



A look at LockBit, a Russia-linked hacking group that claimed responsibility for compromising 40 organizations in the past month, including the UK's Royal Mail (Mehul Srivastava/Financial Times)

Mehul Srivastava / Financial Times:
A look at LockBit, a Russia-linked hacking group that claimed responsibility for compromising 40 organizations in the past month, including the UK's Royal Mail  —  LockBit claims it has compromised 40 organisations around the world in just the past month  —  As the UK's Royal Mail grappled …



Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Interviews with 24+ people detail Elon Musk's destructive Twitter leadership: brutal layoffs, relaunching Blue, losing money, and breaking the company's culture (The Verge)

The Verge:
Interviews with 24+ people detail Elon Musk's destructive Twitter leadership: brutal layoffs, relaunching Blue, losing money, and breaking the company's culture  —  Twitter's staff spent years trying to protect the social media site against impulsive billionaires who wanted to use the reach …



A draft House memo detailed failures by Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms to address extremism before January 6, much of which were not in the final report (Washington Post)

Washington Post:
A draft House memo detailed failures by Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms to address extremism before January 6, much of which were not in the final report  —  The House committee investigating the riot avoided detailed discussion in its report for fear of offending Republicans and tech companies, sources say



Google's Nest appears to be working on AirTag-like location trackers, codenamed "Grogu", with support for Bluetooth LE and UWB, possibly for launch at I/O (Jess Weatherbed/The Verge)

Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google's Nest appears to be working on AirTag-like location trackers, codenamed “Grogu”, with support for Bluetooth LE and UWB, possibly for launch at I/O  —  Google is reportedly working on a location tracking tag to compete with the likes of Apple's AirTags and Tile trackers …



Crypto prices are recovering in January so far: bitcoin is up 26%, including 22% in the past week, to over $20,000, ether is up 29%, and meme coins are rising (Reuters)

Reuters:
Crypto prices are recovering in January so far: bitcoin is up 26%, including 22% in the past week, to over $20,000, ether is up 29%, and meme coins are rising  —  Bitcoin is on the charge in 2023, dragging the crypto market off the floor and electrifying bonk, a new meme coin.



The UK amends the Online Safety Bill to make senior managers at tech companies criminally liable for failures to protect minors, following demands by Tory MPs (Charles Hymas/Telegraph)

Charles Hymas / Telegraph:
The UK amends the Online Safety Bill to make senior managers at tech companies criminally liable for failures to protect minors, following demands by Tory MPs  —  Social media bosses who fail to protect children from harmful content will face jail now the Government has conceded to rebel MPs



Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the company plans to integrate OpenAI's tools into all of its products and make them available for other businesses to build on (Sam Schechner/Wall Street Journal)

Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the company plans to integrate OpenAI's tools into all of its products and make them available for other businesses to build on  —  Offering for businesses and end users to be transformed by incorporating tools like ChatGPT, CEO Satya Nadella says



Montenegro says Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon will be extradited to the US, potentially ending a standoff over competing demands by the US and South Korea (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg : Montenegro says Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon will be extradited to the US, potentially ending a standoff over competing ...