Tech Meme

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 … Lees verder op Tech Meme

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 … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Andy Greenberg / Wired: A history of Turla APT, the “premiere espionage tool” of Russia’s FSB, which has been operating for 25+ years, with its Snake malware in use for about 20 years  —  From USB worms to satellite-based hacking, Russia’s FSB hackers, known as Turla, have spent 25 years distinguishing themselves as “adversary number one.” Lees verder op Tech Meme

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. Lees verder op Tech Meme

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. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Reuters: Leaders of the G7 nations call for the development and adoption of global AI standards and to “take stock of the opportunities and challenges of generative AI”  —  Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations on Saturday called for the development and adoption of international technical standards … Lees verder op Tech Meme

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 Lees verder op Tech Meme

Katharine Gemmell / Bloomberg: The UK sentences Tejay Fletcher, the mastermind behind phone number spoofing service iSpoof, which scammed victims out of ~£100M, to over 13 years in prison  —  The mastermind behind a global “spoofing shop” that scammed victims out of as much as £100 million ($124 million) … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Katharine Gemmell / Bloomberg: The UK sentences Tejay Fletcher, the mastermind behind phone number spoofing service iSpoof, which scammed victims out of ~£100M, to over 13 years in prison  —  The mastermind behind a global “spoofing shop” that scammed victims out of as much as £100 million ($124 million) … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica: Filing: AT&T asks the FCC to block a SpaceX/T-Mobile plan that allows Starlink to service areas lacking T-Mobile coverage, saying “FCC’s rules do not permit” it  —  AT&T and rural telcos say Starlink-fueled phone service would cause interference. Lees verder op Tech Meme