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Reuters: Meta says it has acquired the worldwide trademark assets of US regional bank Meta Financial Group for $60M in cash through a company called Beige Key — Meta Platforms Inc (FB.O), the owner of social media network Facebook, is behind a $60 million deal to acquire the trademark assets …

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: Kronos, one of the largest HR and workflow management companies, says a ransomware attack knocked its systems offline, possibly for the next several weeks — Kronos outage will last several weeks. Firm advises customers to use other services. — As the world is...

Tim Starks / CyberScoop: CISA Director Jen Easterly says the Log4j flaw likely affects hundreds of millions of devices and may be the most serious bug she has seen in her career — Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly told industry leaders in a phone briefing...

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE: Crypto gaming company VulcanForge says hackers stole ~$135M from users by accessing 96 wallet private keys, as three high-profile hacks net ~$404M this month — VulcanForge becomes the third cryptocurrency company to be hit by hackers this month. In total...

Ina Fried / Axios: In an interview, Meta's Andrew Bosworth says political and COVID-19 misinformation are societal problems, not issues that have been magnified by social networks — Longtime Facebook veteran Andrew Bosworth insists that political and COVID-19 misinformation are societal...

Yantoultra Ngui / Bloomberg: Intel says it will spend $7B to expand its chip packaging facilities in Penang, Malaysia — - CEO is in Asia this week for talks with TSMC, partners — The investment marks a major outlay for the American firm — Intel Corp. is spending $7 billion to build a new...

Filippo Valsorda / Filippo.io: How to professionalize the role of Open Source maintainers as the maintainer who fixed the log4j vulnerability says he works on the project in his spare time — Open Source software runs the Internet, and by extension the economy. This is an undisputed fact about...

Yang Jie / Wall Street Journal: The heavily indebted Chinese chip conglomerate Tsinghua Unigroup says a consortium led by two state-backed VC firms would become its strategic investor — Two state-backed venture capital firms will help the heavily indebted company restructure its assets —...

Suhauna Hussain / Los Angeles Times: Some trans and nonbinary drivers say Uber banned their accounts after it treated their documents as fraudulent; Uber says it's working to restore the accounts — Adrian Escobedo signed up to drive for Uber Eats to help support his family after his fiancee...

CNBC: Instacart president Carolyn Everson says she will step down at the end of the year, just three months after joining the company — - Another high-profile Instacart executive is leaving the company. — Carolyn Everson announced Friday she will step down as president at the end of the year.

Richard Lawler / The Verge: Meta launches new tools for creators and says it is testing live chat help for some English-speaking users globally who are locked out of their accounts — Better customer support for creators and average users alike — Despite eagerly participating in a platform...

Maxwell Strachan / VICE: In email, Better.com's board says CEO Vishal Garg is “taking time off effective immediately” and it's hiring a firm to “do a leadership and cultural assessment” — The company has also hired an outside firm to “do a leadership and cultural assessment,

Packy McCormick / Not Boring: Replit, a browser-based IDE for cross-platform collaborative coding, says it has raised a $80M Series B led by Coatue at a $800M valuation — Replit Raises $80M Series B to Bring the Next Billion Software Creators Online … Hi friends ?, — Happy Thursday!

Tom Warren / The Verge: Google says it will release Google Play Games in 2022 as a native Windows app that will let Android games run on Windows 10 and up — Google Play Games comes to PC next year — Google is planning to bring Android games to Windows PCs next year. A Google Play Games app...

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Tim Berners-Lee's Inrupt, which aims to “reshape the internet” by letting users control their data, raises Series A led by Forte Ventures, source says for ~$30M — Tim Berners-Lee's startup, Inrupt, has raised about $30 million in its Series A financing round, a...

Bloomberg: Gov. Ron DeSantis says Florida will explore letting businesses pay state fees in cryptocurrencies and using blockchain for Medicaid payments and vehicle titles — - Blockchain tech mulled for vehicle titles, Medicaid payments — State needs to be ‘crypto-friendly,’ Governor DeSantis says

Angel Au-Yeung / Forbes: Cher Scarlett, a leader of #AppleToo, says she is no longer withdrawing her NLRB complaint against Apple after it failed to execute a settlement in good faith — Former Apple engineer Cher Scarlett is no longer withdrawing her complaint with the National Labor Relation...

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Byju's acquires Austria-based GeoGebra, which develops an interactive math learning tool reaching 100M students, source says for $100M in cash and stock — Byju's has acquired Austria-headquartered GeoGebra, the latest in a series of purchases by the Indian edtech...

Mayank Parmar / BleepingComputer: Amazon says it will shut down Alexa.com, its global website ranking system, on May 1, 2022, after 25 years of operation — Amazon announced on Wednesday plans to shut down its global website ranking system and competitor analysis tool “Alexa.com”, which has...

Instagram is bringing back a chronological feed, according to statements made by Instagram head Adam Mosseri during his testimony today before a Senate panel over the harms to young people using the app. Mosseri was asked if he believed consumers should be able to use the Instagram app without...