Umar Shakir / The Verge:
Echoing TikTok’s gifting, YouTube is rolling out “jewels” that users can buy to support creators during livestreams, for those in the YouTube Partner Program — YouTube is taking a page out of the TikTok playbook by adding “jewels” you buy to exchange for gifts for your favorite creators during livestreams.
BitSight, the cybersecurity startup last valued at $2.4B, acquires Cybersixgill, which gathers threat intelligence data from the dark web, for $115M (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
BitSight, the cybersecurity startup last valued at $2.4B, acquires Cybersixgill, which gathers threat intelligence data from the dark web, for $115M — More consolidation is afoot in the world of cybersecurity. BitSight, the startup last valued at $2.4 billion when ratings firm Moody’s took …
Sources: the CFPB moves to place Google under formal federal supervision, an extraordinary move that may lead to regular inspections; Google fiercely resisted (Tony Romm/Washington Post)
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Sources: the CFPB moves to place Google under formal federal supervision, an extraordinary move that may lead to regular inspections; Google fiercely resisted — The agency aims to conduct more rigorous direct oversight of the tech firm, a major move that Google has resisted in the final months of the Biden administration.
The EU fines Meta €797.72M for tying Facebook Marketplace to Facebook and “imposing unfair trading conditions” on rival websites, the first such fine for Meta (Javier Espinoza/Financial Times)
Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:
The EU fines Meta €797.72M for tying Facebook Marketplace to Facebook and “imposing unfair trading conditions” on rival websites, the first such fine for Meta — Facebook is undermining rivals by ‘tying’ its free Marketplace services with the social network, Brussels says
Snap unveils new Snapchat location and privacy tools, including letting parents request their teen’s location and view their location-sharing settings (Quentyn Kennemer/The Verge)
Quentyn Kennemer / The Verge:
Snap unveils new Snapchat location and privacy tools, including letting parents request their teen’s location and view their location-sharing settings — Once known only for its self-destructing pics, in recent years Snapchat has sneakily evolved into a location-oriented social media app.
Google releases a new free Gemini app for iOS, letting users ask questions and chat via text, voice, or camera, as well as use conversational Gemini Live (David Pierce/The Verge)
David Pierce / The Verge:
Google releases a new free Gemini app for iOS, letting users ask questions and chat via text, voice, or camera, as well as use conversational Gemini Live — In the AI chatbot world, ubiquity is everything. Companies have raced to build desktop and mobile apps for their bots …
Google updates Maps to help users search for products like home goods, clothing, and electronics and find stores nearby, improve traffic reporting, and more (Jess Weatherbed/The Verge)
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google updates Maps to help users search for products like home goods, clothing, and electronics and find stores nearby, improve traffic reporting, and more — Google has added some new travel and shopping features to Maps that aim to make it easier to find local products and stay on time during busy periods.
X names Mahmoud Reza Banki as CFO; Banki, who Trump pardoned for making false statements in January 2021, was Tubi CFO and, a source says, joined X in November (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street Journal:
X names Mahmoud Reza Banki as CFO; Banki, who Trump pardoned for making false statements in January 2021, was Tubi CFO and, a source says, joined X in November — Mahmoud Reza Banki, former Tubi finance chief, joins platform amid financial challenges — Elon Musk’s X Corp. named Mahmoud …
Microsoft releases Windows 11 ISOs for Arm64 PCs, letting users clean install Windows via official offline media, including the latest Snapdragon X Copilot+ PCs (Zac Bowden/Windows Central)
Zac Bowden / Windows Central:
Microsoft releases Windows 11 ISOs for Arm64 PCs, letting users clean install Windows via official offline media, including the latest Snapdragon X Copilot+ PCs — Windows 11 ISOs for PCs with an Arm64 processor are now officially available, but older Snapdragon laptops will need to jump through additional hoops to get them working.
Experts expect Trump to relax business cybersecurity rules, drop human rights concerns on spyware, and take an aggressive stance on US adversaries’ cyber armies (Eric Geller/Wired)
Eric Geller / Wired:
Experts expect Trump to relax business cybersecurity rules, drop human rights concerns on spyware, and take an aggressive stance on US adversaries’ cyber armies — Experts expect Donald Trump’s next administration to relax cybersecurity rules on businesses, abandon concerns around human rights …
