Australia's Senate passes a social media ban for children under 16, brushing aside lawmaker concerns on both sides; tech companies could be fined up to A$50M
- Australia's social media laws to be among strictest in world — Children under age of 16 will be banned from opening accounts
Microsoft says a feature to let US users play and buy Xbox games from the Xbox app on Android is “ready to go live as soon as the court makes a final decision”
A few weeks ago, Microsoft exec Sarah Bond said that in November, “players will be able to play and purchase Xbox games directly from the Xbox App on Android.”
Ofcom: 22.9M UK adults visited Reddit in May 2024, up 47% YoY, making it the fifth biggest social media platform in the UK, above X's 22.1M and LinkedIn's 18.3M
Discussion platform takes fifth place in rankings and is the fastest growing large social media platform in the UK Bluesky: @mattnavarra.com . X: @jim_edwards . LinkedIn: Ollie Wrighton . Forums: r/te...
On Joe Rogan's podcast, Marc Andreessen criticizes the “raw administrative power” of US agencies like the CFPB, SEC, and FTC, talks Elon Musk and DOGE, and more
- Marc Andreessen discussed Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency on Joe Rogan's podcast.
Ofcom: UK adults now spend 4 hours and 20 minutes on average daily online, a jump from 3 hours and 41 minutes in 2023, which was only an 8-minute bump over 2022
Adults are spending an average of 4 hours and 20 minutes each day online across smartphones, tablets and computers in the U.K. …
Sources: the US FTC opens an antitrust investigation into Microsoft, focusing on its cloud and software licensing business and its cybersecurity and AI products
- FTC has sent detailed information demand to Microsoft — Questions focus on software licensing, cybersecurity and AI
Alibaba releases 32.5B-parameter QwQ-32B-Preview under Apache 2.0 and claims the “reasoning” AI model beats OpenAI's o1-preview on the AIME and MATH tests
A new so-called “reasoning” AI model, QwQ-32B-Preview, has arrived on the scene. It's one of the few to rival OpenAI's o1 …
The US FTC finalizes amendments to its Telemarketing Sales Rule, letting the agency pursue scam tech support companies even when consumers initiate the calls
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has finalized amendments to its Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), making it easier to protect consumers …
Mark Zuckerberg met with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on November 27; sources: Zuckerberg, who has had a strained relationship with Trump, initiated the meeting
months after the president-elect's jail threat to Meta boss CBS News : Zuckerberg meets with Trump at Mar-a-Lago Will Potter / Daily Mail : Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg ‘grateful for invitation’ to make...
Young founders and coders applying for Elon Musk's DOGE cite a range of professional and civic motivations; sources say DOGE is seeking 100 full-time DC hires
The incoming Trump administration's planned agency for cutting government excess is seeking 100 full-time hires in the nation's capital …
Romania's regulator calls for TikTok's suspension after an ultranationalist's shock first-round win fueled by viral TikTok videos, amid vote interference fears
Jon Henley / The Guardian :
How Huawei and other Chinese tech companies are bombarding workers in Taiwan, Europe, and Silicon Valley with job offers in areas like advanced chips and AI
Huawei offered triple pay to lure staff from a key supplier of chip-making parts, sparking German investigation
a16z General Partner Sriram Krishnan is leaving after four years; a source says he has talked to Elon Musk about joining the Department of Government Efficiency
The Information :
How Altera deployed up to 1,000 AI agents that used LLMs to interact in Minecraft, finding that they formed a remarkable range of personality traits and roles
Left to their own devices, an army of AI characters didn't just survive — they thrived. They developed in-game jobs, shared memes …
Cloud backup startup Eon raised $70M led by BOND at a $1.4B valuation, taking its total funding to $200M since its January 2024 founding by three AWS alumni
- BOND led a $70 million funding round, Eon's third this year — Cloud backup startup was founded by Amazon Web Services alumni
Incoming FCC chairman Brendan Carr's censorial agenda, which is couched in the language of free speech, may be the biggest threat to the 1A in quite a long time
www.techdirt.com/2024/11/27/ b... Tim Karr / @timkarr.bsky.social : Where one of the bigger threats to free speech under the coming Trump admin, says the private entity NewsGuard “is under investigati...
Sources: Trump's team interviewed Paul Atkins, a former US SEC commissioner and strong proponent of crypto and fintech companies, as a candidate to lead the SEC
how Trump's economic policies shaped the cryptocurrency landscape Ronny Mugendi / CoinGape : Pro-XRP Lawyer John Deaton Endorses Paul Atkins as Potential SEC Chair Gino Matos / CryptoSlate : Trump tea...
T-Mobile's CSO says “suspicious behavior, discovery-type commands” on the company's network routers tipped it off to the potentially Salt Typhoon-linked breach
Kelcee Griffis / Bloomberg :
Filing: Intel's $7.86B US government subsidy requires the company to own at least 50.1% of Intel Foundry if the unit is split into a new privately held entity
company has to maintain majority share if it spins off manufacturing unit Oliver Haill / Proactive : Intel's US govt subsidies linked to holding major stake in chipmaking arm Vidhya Ck / International...
DefiLlama: stablecoins' total market cap has grown 46% in 2024 so far to a record ~$190B, regaining the ground lost after TerraUSD's infamous collapse in 2022
Sidhartha Shukla / Bloomberg :
Google updates Google Chat with huddles to let users start an audio-first meeting, with a floating window displaying controls to add video or share their screen
Abner Li / 9to5Google :
Call center workers in the Philippines, where an estimated 86% of white-collar workers already use AI, say generative AI tools have made work more demanding
Michael Beltran / Rest of World :
India's competition watchdog launches a probe into Google's restrictive policies for real-money games on Android, following a complaint by gaming app WinZO
India's competition watchdog on Thursday ordered a probe into Google's restrictive policies for real-money games on its platform …
Reddit COO Jen Wong says ~50% of Reddit's users are located outside the US, and the company is developing new search tools to make navigating the site easier
Arjun Kharpal / CNBC :
Spotify stops allowing developers building third-party apps with its Web API to access several features, like song and artist recommendations and Audio Analysis
https://techcrunch.com/... Bluesky: Max Zeff / @mzeff.bsky.social : NEW: Spotify seems to be cracking down on competitors creating AI music recommendation tools. — The company limited developers fro...
Source: Amazon's new generative AI model, codenamed Olympus, can process images, video, and text, and could be unveiled as soon as next week's AWS re:Invent
The Information :
The US FTC is investigating Uber over Uber One's enrollment and cancellation process; Uber says “Uber One members can easily cancel their membership in the app”
Leah Nylen / Bloomberg :
US filing: Google sent subpoenas in October 2024 to OpenAI, Perplexity AI, and Microsoft for the remedies part of the US v. Google search antitrust trial
Marty Swant / Digiday :
Filing: Zoom offers $18M to settle an SEC probe from 2020, over the company's privacy policies and communications when its popularity surged during the pandemic
Brody Ford / Bloomberg :
Filing: Google asks a US federal appeals court to throw out the Epic ruling that would force it to overhaul Google Play, arguing it competes with Apple and more
Bloomberg :
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26
Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control
Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data
Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.