Airbnb launches Icons, a new category of experiences that lets users meet celebrities and stay in outlandish venues, like a replica of the house from Pixar’s Up (Orlando Mayorquín/New York Times)

Orlando Mayorquín / New York Times:
Airbnb launches Icons, a new category of experiences that lets users meet celebrities and stay in outlandish venues, like a replica of the house from Pixar’s Up  —  The company announced a new category of outlandish stays in partnership with brands and celebrities, building on the success of gimmicks like the Barbie Malibu DreamHouse.

In a US Senate hearing, the UnitedHealth CEO says the company paid a $22M ransom to hackers who accessed a Change Healthcare server that wasn’t protected by MFA (Ashley Capoot/CNBC)

Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
In a US Senate hearing, the UnitedHealth CEO says the company paid a $22M ransom to hackers who accessed a Change Healthcare server that wasn’t protected by MFA  —  UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill on May 1, 2024 in Washington, DC.

Substack now lets writers paywall their Chat discussion spaces and says active Chat participants are 12% more likely to retain their subscriptions (Aisha Malik/TechCrunch)

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Substack now lets writers paywall their Chat discussion spaces and says active Chat participants are 12% more likely to retain their subscriptions  —  Substack is launching the ability for writers to paywall their entire Chat or specific threads to paid or founding members only, the company announced on Wednesday.

Atlassian debuts Rovo, an AI product giving businesses contextual search, insights, and the ability to add custom agents to handle tasks and “complete projects” (Frederic Lardinois/TechCrunch)

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Atlassian debuts Rovo, an AI product giving businesses contextual search, insights, and the ability to add custom agents to handle tasks and “complete projects”  —  During its Team ’24 conference in Las Vegas, Atlassian today launched Rovo, its new AI assistant.

LastPass separates from GoTo, which announced the spinoff in December 2021, six years after buying LastPass; the service suffered high profile hacks in 2022 (Wes Davis/The Verge)

Wes Davis / The Verge:
LastPass separates from GoTo, which announced the spinoff in December 2021, six years after buying LastPass; the service suffered high profile hacks in 2022  —  It’s been over a year and a half since LastPass suffered back-to-back high-profile hacks, and the company now says it has separated from its parent company, GoTo.

Q&A with White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar on her role, working at DARPA, AI, showing ChatGPT to Biden, and more (Steven Levy/Wired)

Steven Levy / Wired:
Q&A with White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar on her role, working at DARPA, AI, showing ChatGPT to Biden, and more  —  Arati Prabhakar has the ear of the US president and a massive mission: help manage AI, revive the semiconductor industry, and pull off a cancer moonshot.

Sources: US federal prosecutors are digging into internal practices at Block, discussing with an ex-employee alleged widespread and yearslong compliance lapses (Gretchen Morgenson/NBC News)

Gretchen Morgenson / NBC News:
Sources: US federal prosecutors are digging into internal practices at Block, discussing with an ex-employee alleged widespread and yearslong compliance lapses  —  Internal documents indicate Block processed crypto transactions for terrorist groups and Square processed transactions involving nations subject to economic sanctions.