Twitter’s former security chief, whistleblower Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, levied a host of accusations against the platform to the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, saying Twitter maintained lax security standards, did not vet employee access to user data and would not improve its practices even in the face of government fines.
Why it matters: The testimony comes as Twitter's court fight to get Elon Musk to make good on his deal to buy the company for $44 billion moves forward, but it did not appear to offer much new ammunition for Musk's case.
SAN FRANCISCO — Travel may play a different role than it has in the past.
What they're saying: It will become "the antidote to us endlessly scrolling on a screen or watching something or buying something or working," Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said at Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology conference.
New guidance from the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control provides a roadmap for people who used Tornado Cash for lawful transactions to withdraw their stuck funds.
Driving the news: On August 8, Treasury announced that the smart contracts that made up the Tornado Cash transaction privacy application on Ethereum had fallen under U.S. sanctions, meaning that no U.S. person could use it.
Nintendo showed no signs of decelerating its Switch console business Tuesday with an online showcase that revealed major releases deep into 2023.
Driving the news: Nintendo's show-closer was a short trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the repeatedly delayed sequel to its 2017 Switch launch hit Breath of the Wild.
AppLovin on Tuesday said it won't submit a new bid to acquire video game development platform Unity Software, after its $20 billion all-stock offer was rejected.
Why it matters: Unity now can complete its $4.4 billion acquisition of mobile ad tech firm IronSource, which it would have needed to scrap under the terms of AppLovin's proposal.
Twitter shareholders on Tuesday will vote to approve or reject Elon Musk's $44 billion takeover offer, while Twitter whistleblower Peiter "Mudge" Zatko will testify in front of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
Between the lines: The two events aren't officially related, but there is a through line with Musk hoping that Zatko will become his Get Out Of Deal Free card.
Meta is merging its business integrity unit, the team that moderates ad content, with its central integrity team, which moderates users' posts, according to an internal memo obtained by Axios.
Why it matters: The merger of the two departments will drive efficiencies at a time when Meta is looking to cut costs, two sources told Axios.
Twitter is still the place where media publishers collectively have the largest audiences, followed by Facebook and Instagram, according to an Axios analysis of 82 major news, entertainment and sports publishers.
Why it matters: While some publishers are finding quick success on TikTok, the platform yields fewer overall followers for publishers than other social platforms.
Amazon is going on another acquisition shopping spree in the shadow cast by Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan's high-profile critiqueof the company's size and power.
Why it matters: Major social media platforms largely rely on these data centers — facilities that house computers, servers and storage systems — to keep their services running. Another outage may result in Twitter going dark for some of its users.
PARIS — Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot tells Axios that company reform in the wake of workplace misconduct scandals, that demoralized employees and had some players talking boycott, “has been my main focus for the past two years.”
Why it matters: Guillemot is testing the premise that a boss during bad times can also effectively deliver reform.
High profile hacks and funds being locked up on struggling platforms are nightmare headlines for the crypto industry as it seeks to win new believers, but for some hardware companies like Ledger, they are prime marketing material.
Why it matters: Most blockchain veterans believe that cold storage — holding your crypto offline and off the internet — is the safest way to store digital assets. Self custody, holding those digital assets outright, also shields owners from the fickle policies of [name your exchange].
Twitter on Monday rejected a new argument made in a letter sent by Elon Musk's lawyers to the social giant on Friday that alleged it violated its merger agreement by paying $7.75 million in severance costs to its former security chief.
Why it matters: It's the third argument and counter-argument made by Musk and Twitter over whether Musk legally has the right to terminate his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter.
The United States could miss out on trillions of dollars in economic growth if it fails to confront the growing technology threat posed by China, according to a new report from the Eric Schmidt-led Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP).
Why it matters: An American failure to challenge China would not only cost the U.S. economic growth and jobs; it would also let an authoritarian state call the shots for the world's digital infrastructure.
Facebook parent Meta is shifting its PyTorch AI tools, which are already available under open source license, to an outside governance model overseen by a new independent board under the auspices of the Linux Foundation.
Why it matters: The move will give the code more independence from Meta and also give a broader voice to other big partners, including Google and Amazon.
Machine-learning programs that can produce sometimes jaw-dropping images from brief text prompts have advanced in a matter of months from a "that's quite a trick" stage to a genuine cultural disruption.
Why it matters: These new AI capabilities confront the world with a mountain of questions over the rights to the images the programs learned from, the likelihood they will be used to spread falsehoods and hate, the ownership of their output and the nature of creativity itself.
